Monday, June 9, 2008

~~ Flooding ~~

First off, we're okay.....We made it home from a show in St. Louis late last night. Our studio is in flooded shape again after more heavy rain this weekend. This was the worst flooding our studio had gone through since it first flooded on our way home from Paris 7 years ago.
We have silt from the neighbors garden coated onto our floor we'll be needing to scrape off and move the tablesaw and other heavy stuff to let the cement floor dry. More heavy rain is predicted for the week. A 90% chance of heavy rain for tonight here in Monroe County. Most likely more flooding will ensue.
Needing to do laundry but the thought of adding yet more water to the saturated ground is not a keen idea.

Our studio, while not in a flood plain, floods with heavy rains. The guys who built it were careless in their drainage decisions and if they'd built it one 8" brick higher all around, the rains most likely would not permeate between the wall and foundation the way they do. We flooded 3 times last week as we were preparing for our show in St. Louis. Not fun.

The show was to open Friday night from 6-10. We set up during the day, no sooner did we finish our set up and the tornado sirens blasted. We left saying a prayer as we were well tied down and happily not on a corner isle. Show was cancelled for that evening. The field flooded with at least 4" of rain.
Saturday and Sunday were perhaps the hottest we'd ever felt at a show in 24 years of doing this. 95ยบ and high humidity. The fact we had electricity and fans running, kept many of us from going to the hospital. The show staff did an excellent job providing water to all the artists. It was brutal and thus reflected in our zero sales. Very disappointing and not something we needed. We seem to take a step forward and 2 back this year. We can only hope that the summer will be kinder to us in our outdoor gallery.

Some of the roads needed to get home last night had been closed due to flooding earlier in the day. We were able to get home by our usual route but saw semi's that had hydroplaned off the highways and landed in ditches. 41 Indiana counties are under disaster state from flooding, loss of life and devastation. With more inclement weather on it's way, we can only hope it will calm down soon.
In the meantime we do what we can do to right the ship and keep sailing.

We have a commission due this week as a Fathers Day gift and amid all this clean up, that will get done!
Say a prayer for those harder hit, there are a lot of people having a difficult time dealing with all of this.

Ten years ago, almost to the day, when we lived in the forest house we had, we had a bad flood. Ten inches of rain came down in a short period of time. I think this is a ten year flood we are once again going through.
Blessings to all the small creatures at its mercy.

Hope all well and safe!
Pat & Jon

2 comments:

Holly Olinger said...

I sure feel for you guys. Moving mad and making art is not compatible. Hugs...

Anonymous said...

Wishing you drier days ahead. Love to you. Kathy