The 'Ocean State' has literally turned into the ocean!

[HAVE_A_HEART]

As many of you know--I am a resident oof a small, tiny, East Coast State that use to be known to the world as Rhode Island.  I say use to be--because there is a decree that have the State's name changed to Row Island! 

 

Flood is the word of the week for this state right now!  There are floods everywhere--including my basement--(Just above ankle deep right now).  I have a brand new river in my back yard--but I am not as bad as areas like Cranston and West warwick--where entire sections of those towns have been totally evacuated.  What am I saying?  Half of Western Rhode Island have been evacuated or is currently being considered as to whether or not they should be evacuated.  Roughtly %40 of I 95--the main highway of RI is unreachable--or closed down--(And there are only 28 exits on I 95 here--what does that tell u????). 

 

President Obama had declared the entire State of RI in a State of Emergency, so we are going to be under a federal watch at least for the rest of this week.  Which is good--because it is suppose to rain the rest of this week!  But u wanna know what the biggest problem of the whole situation is??  I don't have any bacon available for breakfast--and I can't go out to get any!!  Grrrrr!!!!

 

[larry kremis]

That's not what I said!






OK, yes it is. He's at home but no power.

[larry kremis]

Just received another text from HAVE-A-HEART. He says HI, He invites all of you to go for a swim in his back yard, as long as you don't mind a lot of brown stuff floating next to you. lol

[HAVE_A_HEART]

Hey folks!! Guess what? I managed to swim my way back into your life! I gotta tell yo--what a week this have been!!! While Row Island--whoops--I mean Rhode Island is not totally out of the woods yet--there are some signs of 'normalacy' if we can call it that?

While I can't tell you about everything that happened--I can tell you some of the highlights--starting with my house and my neighbors. As you know--The National Guard had to evacuate my whole town because largest dam of the entire State of Rhode island--literally shattered. The dam was at a place called Alton's Landing--and for years it pretty much safeguarded the area from a river called Woods River. When the dam broke--the river litterally filled in a 5 square miles area from a town called Bradford and Richmond--all the way to my town of Hopkinton. This apparently happened from a domino effect of another dam that rboke in the Pawtucxet river. That Dam I guess was either the largest or at least the 2nd largest in this area--And with all of the extra water coming out of that river into an already overflown river--well--I guess u know the results. As of now--I still have a flooded basement, that was actually flooded before the actual dam break--but it got worst during the time I was gone. As of now it is about ankle deep again--but I have been advised to let the brand new river in my back yard receed some before I attempt to get more of the water out. I unfortunately am not strong enough to handle it on my own--so some National Guardsmen will be coming over either tomorrow afternoon--or first thing Monday morning--depending on how much water receeds in the back yard.

My mom and I stayed in an adult day center for the week--but we couldn't use the toilet because of the sewage back ups!!! We had to drive on out to one of the nearest stores if we needed to go to a bathroom. (Do you feel sorry for me yet?) As for our cats--the fire department took them to an animal's shelter in Connecticutt--and we are looking to get them back on Monday. I bet they will be so freaking glad to get out of those cages!!

Now in an area not too far from me--a bridge broke--totally destroyed!! And what makes that significant is that it is the only way that Rhode Islanders actually had between one section of the town into another. so now there is no way to get across the river until it is rebuilt. Thee crazy thing about that is that there are folks who work in Providence, and Northern Rhode island--(I am in southern Rhode Island)--but they literally can not get there from here--at least not in thier vehicles--or at least not the way they use to go. these folks have to drive about 20 miles out of thier ways just to get to a road that can take them anywhere near where they gotta go--as they then travel 20 miles back to where they have to go! (How would u like to be doing that for awhile?)

Now let me show u something--The following link is a for a youtube vidieo--that shows the Warwick Mall) This mall have been declared condemned--and it will be closed for 3 to 6 months for repair!! (The vidieo is about 10 minutes long---but watching even a few minutes of it--u will know the agony of the situation we have been in this last week.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBdZN3tTo34
The significance of this is the fact that Rhode Island is seriously in the red as far as finances are concern--and RI also currently have one of the highest unemployment per capita in the country. That mall was one of the biggest money makers in the state--and now we won't even have that until almost Christmas probably!!

FEMA have been doing as much as they can--where they can. However, there are just so many people who have been affected by this tragedy---well....Let's just say it is Katrina all over again on the East Coast--and leave the rest to your imagination!

My fingers are getting tired--so I will type this last thing here---The good news is that it is not suppose to rain again here until Wednesday--which of course will give us some breathing time. However the bad news is--it is suppose to rain for 3 to 4 days after that--andd this flood was created in 3 days! So we are all on the edge about that. Hopefully--Dear God--hopefully we will not get as much rain that time around as we did this week. But we never know--do we?

Bye the way--thanks everybody who sent me the bacons! For the first time in my life I actually got to eat one of those rational food thingies the military folks eat--and i tell you what--those things would be pretty good...if someone can figure out how to put flavor in them!! But once again--God bless our military people!

[Merry]

Welcome back HAH!

(((((doing a sundance for your state))>>)))

[larry kremis]

Welcome back Heart. All that devastation is hard to imagine. You and your mom are safe. Life will return to normal.

[metub4]

It will soon be dry and all will be wishing for more rain. maybe not soon enough though........

[Kittycat]

Glad you're back HAH.... :-D What devastation...It's amazing what havoc water can cause...

[larry kremis]

Bummer, Heart lost power again at his house.

[TeeBubbaDee]

bumping nancy off the front page

[HAVE_A_HEART]

I am back..again....hopefully to stay this time. There are some FEMA people who are suppose to be at my house, or at least on my block, sometime before 10. Once that is settled, I am going to go and rescue my cats. We have had two beautiful days of Spring in the row. Easter was a joyous celebration. I realized this morning that it was a good thing my power was shut down again yesterday--other wise my TV would be broken if I would have been able to watch The Yankees/Red Sox game last night!

As of right now Rhode Island's total structual damage is estimated to be around $200,000,000!!!!!! This does not even include what ever the estemation of cleaning ups and repairs will be! Some good news though is that the rain we were suppose to get starting Wednesday is going another direction. We actually won't start getting rained on till at least Friday. It will continue into saturday--however the weather people are predicting that it won't be anywhere near the level of last week's 10 to 12 inches storms. This also gives a couple of more days for all of the rivers to totally receed back to normal capacity. Of course with 4 dams in the State busted out--we will have to get a new level of whatever 'normal capacity' actualy is for these states.

I know that RI was not the only East Coast State that was hit--however we seem to have taken the biggest hit. I am wondering if there are any other East Coast 'survivors'--I know--that is milking it--isn't it?) who can tell us about what is going on with thier necks of the woods--if they got hit with this thing? I know some folks in CT got some significant damaged. Especially in the Mystic and Norwich area. So folks--what is going n out there?

[larry kremis]

Welcome back again Heart! We have flooding issues at our house when there's near record breaking rains. It's going on 5 years since we've had those kind of rains. The last time it happened, our county was also declared a disaster area and we received some help from FEMA.

[HAVE_A_HEART]

Thanks Larry! Yeah--I know Ohio/Indiana gets kicked in the butt sometimes!! I had flood duty in 1992 when the wabash river developed an attitude problem! I worked in Terre Haute, and then Mishawaulka. I remember watching a Mobile home literally going down the stream! Oh my gosh--was that scary to watch!!

My older son currently lives and works in Fargo, ND! His house is right across the street from The Red River. U wanna talk to him and see how much he knows about flooding??