Weather
The Fog
February/22/2007 05:37 PM
I had some work to do today really late. As I left
one client (after dark) and headed towards another
the fog had begun rolling in.
About a mile from the clients house I had to slow to about 20 mph. The fog was so bad it was like there was a 40 ft shield around the car and I couldn't see out of it.
Even house and street lights were only visible at about a few hundred feet. I made it to the clients house and worked for a couple hours.
When I left there I had an hour long drive home. I thought it would make sense to get to the highway first even thought it lengthened my trip.
Before making it to the highway a couple times I came to a complete stop on the road. When the lines of paint ended at an intersection it was impossible to see anything.
I didn't know if the road curved at the intersection or what and I couldn't see the road just the paint.
I made it to the highway and it wasn't any better. I drove at a maximum 40 mph until I found a Semi that was bright enough to follow.
Even after driving all the way home I couldn't see the Taco Bell sign until I was 300 ft from it.
It was the worst fog that I had ever experienced. I hear some schools even had a delay the next morning because of it.
About a mile from the clients house I had to slow to about 20 mph. The fog was so bad it was like there was a 40 ft shield around the car and I couldn't see out of it.
Even house and street lights were only visible at about a few hundred feet. I made it to the clients house and worked for a couple hours.
When I left there I had an hour long drive home. I thought it would make sense to get to the highway first even thought it lengthened my trip.
Before making it to the highway a couple times I came to a complete stop on the road. When the lines of paint ended at an intersection it was impossible to see anything.
I didn't know if the road curved at the intersection or what and I couldn't see the road just the paint.
I made it to the highway and it wasn't any better. I drove at a maximum 40 mph until I found a Semi that was bright enough to follow.
Even after driving all the way home I couldn't see the Taco Bell sign until I was 300 ft from it.
It was the worst fog that I had ever experienced. I hear some schools even had a delay the next morning because of it.
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My entire neighborhood is without power.
January/12/2006 05:28 PM
Our first flooded basement
November/15/2005 01:22 PM
About 5 a.m. this morning we lost electricity
during a storm. In the midst of all the rain, our
sump pump well continued to rise.
At 5:45 a.m. I went down and looked at the height of the water in the well. It was about 6 inches from the top. I attempted to go back to sleep thinking that the electricity would come back on soon. After lying there for nearly 10 minutes, I went back down to have a look and the water was all the way to the top, only a half inch away from pouring over onto the floor. Our basement is still used like a basement, concrete walls, carpet remnants but not carpeted, some exercise equipment and a lot of plastic and cardboard boxes.
The mood of this entire event was casual, as if it's happening and I'm just dealing with it calmly, no panic whatsoever.
I decided that if I didn't do something now everything on the basement floor would get ruined so I grabbed a plastic trash can and began filling it up half way, carrying it upstairs, pouring it down the toilet and repeating. I probably did that about a dozen times before the noise I was making woke my wife and she asked how she could help. At first I had her filling the other trash cans and I would run them to the toilet. After about a dozen of those I realized we couldn't keep up. I told her to get anything off of the floor that she didn't want ruined.
You must realize that throughout this entire event we were both having to carry a flashlight because it was early in the morning and pitch black in the basement.
While she's moving stuff up off the floor, I'm still carrying water upstairs. The well finally poured over and we focused on getting everything moved to higher ground. Fortunately, my brother had given me some cubicles from his old office. I now have (14) 4' x 3' desk areas about 3' off the floor that I didn't have two months ago. This kept us from having to carry everything upstairs because before I setup the cubicles we only had one 4' x 8' table in the basement. Everything else was on the floor.
Just before getting some of the last pieces moved higher, the water was as deep as 2" in some areas of the basement and completely dry in others. This showed me just how uneven the basement floor is. We were both barefoot and the water was cold.
We finished at about 7:15 and went to the living room to relax. I went back down about 30 minutes later to see if it had gotten any worse. There weren't any dry areas on the basement floor anymore. The water appeared to have stopped rising. Once the water on the basement floor creates a pressure equal to that on the outside it stops rising. And that turned out to be about 3". Not 3" everywhere. Just in the deepest areas.
The electricity came back on at 9:11 a.m. and the sump pump has since removed the flooding, although the floor is still wet.
In the end what have we lost? Empty boxes and carpet remnants, that's it. We've lived here 2.5 years now and this is the first time we've had to experience this. It won't happen again because I will be having a water pressure based backup sump pump installed.
I'm on my way now to Meijer to purchase a mop and some bleach to clean the basement floor.
At 5:45 a.m. I went down and looked at the height of the water in the well. It was about 6 inches from the top. I attempted to go back to sleep thinking that the electricity would come back on soon. After lying there for nearly 10 minutes, I went back down to have a look and the water was all the way to the top, only a half inch away from pouring over onto the floor. Our basement is still used like a basement, concrete walls, carpet remnants but not carpeted, some exercise equipment and a lot of plastic and cardboard boxes.
The mood of this entire event was casual, as if it's happening and I'm just dealing with it calmly, no panic whatsoever.
I decided that if I didn't do something now everything on the basement floor would get ruined so I grabbed a plastic trash can and began filling it up half way, carrying it upstairs, pouring it down the toilet and repeating. I probably did that about a dozen times before the noise I was making woke my wife and she asked how she could help. At first I had her filling the other trash cans and I would run them to the toilet. After about a dozen of those I realized we couldn't keep up. I told her to get anything off of the floor that she didn't want ruined.
You must realize that throughout this entire event we were both having to carry a flashlight because it was early in the morning and pitch black in the basement.
While she's moving stuff up off the floor, I'm still carrying water upstairs. The well finally poured over and we focused on getting everything moved to higher ground. Fortunately, my brother had given me some cubicles from his old office. I now have (14) 4' x 3' desk areas about 3' off the floor that I didn't have two months ago. This kept us from having to carry everything upstairs because before I setup the cubicles we only had one 4' x 8' table in the basement. Everything else was on the floor.
Just before getting some of the last pieces moved higher, the water was as deep as 2" in some areas of the basement and completely dry in others. This showed me just how uneven the basement floor is. We were both barefoot and the water was cold.
We finished at about 7:15 and went to the living room to relax. I went back down about 30 minutes later to see if it had gotten any worse. There weren't any dry areas on the basement floor anymore. The water appeared to have stopped rising. Once the water on the basement floor creates a pressure equal to that on the outside it stops rising. And that turned out to be about 3". Not 3" everywhere. Just in the deepest areas.
The electricity came back on at 9:11 a.m. and the sump pump has since removed the flooding, although the floor is still wet.
In the end what have we lost? Empty boxes and carpet remnants, that's it. We've lived here 2.5 years now and this is the first time we've had to experience this. It won't happen again because I will be having a water pressure based backup sump pump installed.
I'm on my way now to Meijer to purchase a mop and some bleach to clean the basement floor.
Snow Storm 2004, can't go anywhere.
December/23/2004 10:00 AM
I'm sitting in my living room surfing and watching
it snow, again, for the third time in two days. I
posted some pics of the snow so far.
The storm is over.
May/30/2004 04:42 PM