We're OK. No damage, no problems - RonO's Ramblings

We all survived yesterday's storms without any major problems. I did leave work just before (and I mean JUST before) the first wave of the storm hit Arlington Heights. Within a block of the plant, visibility dropped to nearly zero because of the heavy rain. However, by the time I got to the credit union in Schaumburg (I was still thinking of getting a past-due haircut on the way home), that wave of the storm had mostly passed.

I got home and learned that we had lost power off and on since Tara and Derrick got home. This was mostly short outages, but one lasted about 30 minutes. When I got upstairs I reset my clock and rebooted the server (but missed the network storage unit until later).

After dinner I got a call from the Karate school informing me that the Escrima seminar for last night was postponed, and somehow managed to communicate with Tara that the open house at Derrick's school was postponed instead. Once we realized the mistake it was too late. Tara should have called the school this morning to arrange for a conference with Derrick's teacher for today or Monday.

I did learn that Bartlett High School measured about 3.05 inches of rain yesterday, so we were probably close (we're about 2 miles from the school I'd guess). I don't recall hearing the sump pump running, so we probably should check the crawlspace to make sure it hasn't flooded, but it tends to stay pretty dry since it is mostly above the natural ground level (built up hill to create a split-level house).

We did loose power twice overnight. Both times I woke up quickly when the cpap quit working. The second time I realized that the UPS on the server was going into panic mode fairly quickly, and was in the process of doing a clean shutdown when the power came back.

This morning there was very little damage in our neighborhood, mostly small branches down on the roads. Tara reported that the retention area near our house was nearly overflowing, however. On the way back to Arlington Heights I did observe several other ponds and retention areas that were quite full. Other than that, this was the smoothest and easiest commute of the week.

I think this is the most water the Chicago area (as a whole) has received in the time I've lived here. However, I suspect that local areas have gotten more water in some of the storms in the past, just they weren't as wide spread.

It is fairly quiet at work this morning since many people are at home dealing with damage and flooded basements, and its a summer Friday so many people are taking half-days and working the morning from home.

Current Mood: happy