When I left you yesterday we were still expecting some more water. It never came. In fact, by sunset the river was well on its way to being back where it’s supposed to be.
Though it left behind plenty of mud.
Actually, the river’s drainage is quite effective and the moment new water stops coming in from upstream it quickly reverts to its normal level. The exception was in 1988 when some trees got caught underneath the bridge by the weir and formed a dam. That time the river rose until it covered the surface of the bridge visible in the background on this photo.
In case you missed it, this morning I woke up with a river in my driveway. This is the third time since we’ve moved into our apartment that this has happened, but the first time I’m blogging about it.
They say a picture paints a thousand words, so here they come…
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I also posted a couple of videos on Youtube here and here.
I’ve mentioned before that we live next to a river. Well, the river has gone through some…changes since Saturday.
Last week still, it looked something like this:
green, half-full, and smelling like sewage
Saturday we had a fair amount of rain, both here and in the catchment area, and it looked like this:
muddy, full, flowing strongly, and no longer smelling of sewage
This morning we were woken by frantic knocking at our door. It looked like this:
Holy crap on a cracker! Can I rent a boat somewhere to get to work?
Apparently the catchment area received a lot more rain last night and the river overflowed its banks, flooding our access road. Reportedly the guys at disaster management called the fire department to notify us, but the fire department didn’t know where our building was. A comforting thought.
Luckily, we’re all Afrikaners in the building and the saying goes, ‘n Boer maak ‘n plan(a Boer makes a plan). So, we cut the fence of the animal park next door and evacuated the cars that way round. The fire department showed up (eventually) and cut the lock on the access gate to the park and we could get out. Our parking area has been temporarily relocated to the security firm who’s our neighbour on the other side:
What would one do without neighbours?
In the hour since I’ve taken these pics the water level has risen by about another three inches. Now it would have been too late to evacuate our cars.
I have to get to work now, but I’ll be back later with more updates and more photos. Have a great day. Mine’s turning out to be quite exciting.
Write a short piece of fiction, around 300 words, using the song title as your story title but don’t listen to the song. You can pick your own genre or use the one suggested to me. Remember to link back to this post so I can find yours.
If you would like to suggest a song title for a future post, you can do so from the challenge page. You can also leave a suggestion on the Facebook page.
This week’s song is I’m Too Sexy by Right Said Fred and the genre is Thriller/Horror. It was suggested by bumblepuppies in response to this post.
Warning: If guys without shirts make you uncomfortable, DON’T watch the video 😉
I’ve been on Twitter for almost a year and a half now. In that time I’ve amassed a grand total of sixty-nine followers. (Suddenly I’m thinking “amassed” is perhaps not the best word to use…) Continue reading “On my digital footprint”→
if all else fails...use a hammer 