Caitlin and I are far from the only people to have experienced the joys of water damage. Talking to a number of people who’d had similar experiences we learned a lot of things about how we might be able to prevent or react to similar problems in the future. And though we’ve known all along (at least in some hidden, rational parts of our brains) that the condition of our house and lives will, soon enough, return to normal, it was nice to hear exactly that from people who had made it through to the far side of such disasters themselves.
One of the things that a few of our friends mentioned, and that had not previously occurred to me, was that – after a bout of flooding – the mere act of rain is enough to make you panic. I’ll admit that this seemed a little far fetched to me. Our house flooded during the worst rainstorm that our area had seen in nearly one hundred years. A rational person would see that – even taking the effects of climate change into account – another such storm, and its accompanying damage, would be extremely unlikely to occur any time soon.
It would seem that I am not a rational person.
Last night we got our first real, substantial rainstorm since the flood. And I raced home from work in a borderline panic, anxious to inspect our basement for any sign of flooding. Of which there were, of course, zero. Everything was fine. Except for my brain. Which is now apparently terrified of anything stronger than a light drizzle. Great.
Songs & Stories 