The Initial Encounter

We weren't scared of Fay. It was a category 1 hurricane at it's worst, and got downgraded to a tropical storm well before it hit us. As storm-jaded Floridians we felt there was nothing to fear. Hell, Fay was even correcting some water shortfalls caused by a long draught a few years back that Mother Nature had thus far failed to address.

After a night of blowing and raining, we felt like we had seen the worst Fay had to show us with this branch that fell off of our magnolia tree in the front yard. I even Twittered that Fay hits like a girl.



Ripples in the Water

The next day, while we were still technically underneath Fay's skirts, Lena and I decided to go out for a drive. We wanted some damn thing from Target, I don't remember what, and then we were going to head over to the game store for my new DM's screen that had just arrived. The parking lot at the game store was a lake, and I stalled out the car. In an instant, I sent $1,100 down a parking lot storm drain.

Taking a cab home, we then discovered that an old sycamore tree in our back yard had fallen when the rain-saturated ground beneath it had turned to mud. The tree went crashing through the fence and missed the neighbor's house by about three feet. (Whew!)

The basement flooded… but like the car this was pretty much my fault. We have a sump pump, but I always forget to turn it on until the room is already full of water. I think I need to make a checklist.

Wandering the Neighborhood

Walking to the corner, I looked down the street towards the river.



I decided to wander that way for a better look. The St. Johns always clocks a storm surge, but it usually isn't too bad. Fay wasn't even a big storm, but it was slow, and it was dumping a lot of water.



I walked (waded, really) another block and looked around. Right…



left…



and across the corner.



So I went out into the middle of the street to look down at the river. Several other brave souls had already headed that way and though I had no notion to follow, I did want to check it out.

Here you can see that the street seems to extend straight out into the river. It actually does, since we were at high tide, the ground was soaked and the water was about 2-3 feet over the sea wall.



In this next one you get a better view of the river, clearly irritated at having grown too fat for it's clothes. The woman standing with the baby is in 3 feet of water, with nothing but rushing currents between her and the St. Johns. This is the more classic definition of stupid.



When I was four years old I was visiting my relatives in Birmingham and while at the park I got into a fight with a six year old girl. (I forget what exactly I had done to deserve this, but I'm sure I did.) At the end of the rather abrupt scuffle she socked me in the eye in a credible imitation of the as-yet unknown Rocky Balboa, knocking me over and sending me home with a black eye my Aunt still talks about.

I have occasionally wondered who that girl was and why we fought. I don't know (nor do I think I ever did know) what that little girl's name was… but it pleases me to think I do. From now on, I'm calling her Fay.