A few weeks ago our little town was hit by the remnants of Hurricane Beryl. That storm first slammed into Houston, looked around for three people that it had expected to find in Fulshear, then bent its way upward across the entire country on a hellbent hunt for those few pesky escapees…

The resulting flooding caused a serious amount of destruction to our little town.

But at least we had some warning for that one…

Last night Daphne came into our bedroom at around 2am and climbed into bed with us. At first I assumed this was simply due to her grandparents departure mucking about with her sleep schedule. Then I became vaguely aware of a faint pattering sound, and occasional flashes of light outside our window.
The mental starter cord took a few pulls before it finally caught and turned over the “Rain” card in my mind…

I sprung out of bed and sprinted to close Daphne’s skylight before the floor of her room got soaked when Jen stopped me with, “I already shut her window.”
Now my actual sentiment in this moment was, “Oh! Thank you very much for taking care of that. I was clearly quite worried there for a moment…”
But what actually came out was “ohkayyeahgoodfluginpagglenat” while I climbed back into bed, head first.

Minutes later, the storm that had sounded so peaceful and relaxing began to take on an angrier tone as it pattered outside our open window, its pitch becoming lower and louder as heavier and heavier raindrops thudded against the metal roof.

This was enough to awaken me, for real this time, and I wandered around making sure all the windows were shut and the A/C units weren’t angled incorrectly so as to send water pouring into the house.

And the rain… Kept. Coming.

I checked the radar reports on my phone and found that this strange downpour had seemingly manifested out of nowhere and, of greater concern, showed no signs of going anywhere.

It just sat there and dumped 8″ of rain on us overnight.

This morning, our neighboring towns look like this…

Because it hit unexpectedly in the middle of the night (and because street lights aren’t really a thing in the NEK), it made this all the more dangerous…

And so we have good news and bad news today…

The good news is that our little house seems to have emerged unscathed once again. The basement is mildly damp and muddy…

but it’s nothing that several rounds of dehumidifier bucket emptying can’t fix. Also we’re all a bit tired after being awake for a good portion of the night, but otherwise we’re just fine. Jen and Daphne are actually outside swinging as I type this.

The bad news is, there’s more on the way. This is from the local weather report:

I gotta say that two 1,000-year flooding events, in the span of 20 days, wasn’t a variable that I’d factored when we chose this little town in northern Vermont. (It’s no small part of the reason that we originally left Houston.) And while weather patterns operate on a time scale outside of anthropocentric perception (even if altered by the effects of human pollution), it’s still alarming…even if anecdotal.

I will say that if the winds pick up like they’re saying, and blow our huge trees around on some already saturated ground, we could be in for a rather interesting evening…

See you tomorrow.

j.s.