# 435 - Moving & Floods

Making the transition to get moved to the country is a major undertaking. Everything is changing in our lives. However, today brought weather that could have threatened the houses that are involved in the transactions scheduled for this coming Wednesday...our house and the buyer's house.

As the moving date gets closer, I face the AWESOME reality of us moving to the country. Yet, I'm at the point of being too scared to get too excited...as if I won't believe it until I am standing there on the land and this city house no longer belongs to me.

Do you think you'll be able to hear me yelling, "YIPEE" from the land?

You know how it goes...you ask for something, then you get it and the reality can scare the wits out of you! That's the phase I'm experiencing.

However, I still hope that our closing on May 15th moves forward without any hitches.

That being said, today, in my part of Texas, we had major thunderstorms with heavy rain and part of our neighborhood flooded. I was at a doctor's appointment when the stormy weather moved overhead, and I barely made it through the flooded streets to get back home. The below photo is my neighborhood as of lunchtime today.

I did not go driving around more than was necessary to get safely parked high into the driveway because one block from our street, the waters were very high. I have been wondering if the buyers for our house were flood-free.

The buyers live a block away from us.

Hopefully, the buyers are like us and hopefully their house is just a tad far enough away from the heavy flooding to keep the house safe from rising water. We've never had rising water in our house.

However, trying to get back home was a problem because the main drag through the neighborhood had a several places that flooded in the deluge, very quickly.

Also, our neighborhood has a reservoir at the back of our property that serves as an outlet for neighborhood draining. During a regular pretty day, there is no flooding to worry about and it serves as a nice large park with a walking path, it has a pond with fish, and the area provides kids with expansive green-space to run and play.

After today's rains, the zones designed to hold excess water, was under water. The walking path was transformed into a path that could only be accessed by swimming.

Since our community is a bay community, our reservoir is impacted by tidal waters. If the tide is in, then a heavy rain might spell disaster, such as today, because the tide prevents flood waters from being drained away properly. We are in a watershed, which means we live on land where all the water that drains goes to the same place, which is...the Bay.

From what I understand, to some degree, we're ALL located in some kind of watershed, but our neighborhood drainage is directly tied to the tide. No pun intended...Tied to the tide!

Anyway, in spite of the heavy storms, I made it home and found our side of the street to be high and dry, but other side of our street (separated by a main drag) was flooding.

STOP WATER STOP!

Someone had a little U-Haul truck parked in the street, and I hope nothing was stored inside of it because the front end was dipped well beneath the water.

Our area is officially known as "Bay Area Houston" which means we have wonderful perks of living close to the water, but when neighborhood drainage is impacted by tidal influences, this can be a problem. Well, that along with hurricanes and tropical storms and days of deluge.

I'm hoping nothing blows, floods, burns, or whirls our houses into damage before closings can take place in FIVE DAYS. Well, I'm hoping none of that happens at ALL, but I do not want to be stuck here dealing with an insurance company for the next two years as we have already been forced to do after Hurricane Ike destroyed our home to the point of making it uninhabitable for almost a year. The legal battle that ensued against the insurance company was long, drawn out and unpleasant. We fought and we won against the insurance company.

Hopefully, if all stays on track, next week we will be leaving this part of Bay Area Houston and this heavily industrialized neighborhood to live in a FOREST --- we'll be living on acreage that has a creek, which we've never seen rise beyond anything manageable, but after all we've been through in the Bay Area, I'm careful to not under-estimate any natural source of water flow.

As long as I don't wake up on the acreage after a heavy rain and find myself floating away, I think it will be okay.