The swimming pool formerly known as New England

This time, the most recent disaster has struck my own region...New England. Flooding from two separate three-day-long rainstorms has caused considerable damage to Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. The city of Boston has shattered a rain record with the recent three-week rainfall of thirteen inches--that's about as much water as thirty feet of snow.

I'm lucky enough to live on a hill, so my house is fine, but surrounding neighborhoods are drenched. I've seen houses that are just sitting in the middle of knee-deep puddles. And my region got off easy...down in Rhode Island, I've heard that some places are absolutely devastated. This flooding has now officially been classified as a state disaster, and we're getting some federal relief money now.

So...any thoughts on this? Anyone else live around here?

Nobody I know has gotten flooded, but I've been seeing the pumps that the store I work at go like crazy each time we get our supply truck in, so I can only imagine it must be pretty bad.

A friend of mine lives on the bank of a river. It's badly swollen, but it fortunately hasn't reached his house, at least for now. They're forecasting that the rivers will swell up some more even now that the rain has stopped.

fawfulfan said:

So...any thoughts on this? Anyone else live around here?

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I live in New England and I haven't got flooded, but I have got some hard rain here and there.. but thirteen inches of rain in boston?
I've got it lucky here.

I don't really live around there; I live in plain, flat Pennsylvania which I guess I should be thankful for. That is pretty close, though, so I'm actually pretty concerned. I'm hoping that nothing gets any worse, 'cause I'm feeling pretty bad that the sun is as bright and the sky is as blue as it could be here.

See, this is exactly why I don't understand the appeal of living next to any body of water or in any low-lying land. I happened to live in Cedar Rapids, Iowa growing up, which was severely flooded during the summer of '08. In addition to losing our beautiful courthouse and public library, hundreds of homes and downtown businesses were destroyed / rendered uninhabitable along a relatively flat area just surrounding the river.

Fortunately, my family's house / my dad's business were located far from the river / located near the tops of hills. So we did okay, aside from the local economy flopping a bit and hurting my dad's sales. But many people have moved away and the city government is still largely in impromptu locations.

But I'm glad you're doing okay, Fawfulfan. Hope your friends are doing so, too.

The original reason for building cities and towns next to bodies of water is because transportation of goods was originally only practical by boat. It's actually still cheaper to ship a lot of goods by boat than other options. Nowadays this isn't as important, but our cities and towns were originally built long enough ago that trains and interstate highways didn't exist, and we're now stuck with their location. New Orleans is a perfect example of a city sitting in one of the stupidest places imaginable because of this. As a port it's a perfect spot, where the largest river in America intersects the Gulf of Mexico. As a city it's in the worst spot imaginable, in a low-lying area of swamp that's horrifically vulnerable to hurricanes.

I have an aunt living in Rhode Island. No word from her yet, as far as I know.