Dad and I headed up Central Avenue and over to Johnathon Moore Pike to Menards to pick up the bathtub Becky and I bought a few days prior. With our house, nothing is standard size, so we bought the 59 and 1/2 inch tub, hoping it would fit into our 58 and 1/2 inch space with some dry wall removal. We encounter our first problem when the tub was brought to the van. It was too large, and we were forced to retreat and get a truck to haul it.
Strike One.
We borrowed a truck from a guy dad works with, and returned. We picked up the tub and analysed how we were going to get the tub into the bathroom, as it was wide, and the doors were not. When we got home and started to unpack the tub, I noticed the drain was on the wrong side...
Strike Two.
At this point, I knew it was going to be a long day. It was about noon and the rain had stopped. I decided that the original tub wasn't going to fit, so dad and I picked out a new one, which was 60 inches long, but dad was confident it would fit. Dad dropped the original off and picked up the new one as I got a refund. It was 1 o'clock, and the rain began once again. This time, hard.
But it didn't last long, as it had stopped pretty much before we got back home. We put the tub on the grass, and dad took the kids with him to return the truck. When they got back, Becky took them to the park, which is only 4 blocks or so from the house. That's when mother nature threw Strike Three.
As she returned, she mentioned that Hawcreek Blvd was covered in water. We thought that was odd, as it had stopped raining and the sun was out. We turned on the news, and it talked about I-65 being closed. We had planned to go to Greenwood to eat dinner at the Outback, but that was now cancelled, so we went to Texas Roadhouse instead. Nothing was out of the ordinary.
We got back home and soon, police cars lined the road in front of our house. Was it an accident? We looked, but saw nothing except traffic being diverted. We turned on the tv once again to see the Columbus Regional Hospital, which is a block behind the park Becky took the kids to, completely flooded. Water devoured the basement of the hospital, and started filling the 1st floor. It was closed and patients began being transported. We soon learned 25th Street (7 blocks away) was closed, 17th Street (the road the hospital is on) was closed, Johnathon Moore Pike (where we had been twice to get the tub) was also shut down. The flood was ravaging the city.
(Columbus Regional Hospital under water)
We walked down to the corner, and saw the water coming up the road on 17th Street, inching it's way closer. I went back to the house, and with the help of the kids, I unloaded my display case in the basement, home to my entire 300 plus Beatles record collection, and transported it to the upstairs. I took Becky aside and pointed out the order of importance of the other things in the basement. If the water started coming, the second display case was next to go (with my Jimi Hendrix record collection), followed by whatever we could grab.
We went back outside and watched as the water made it up 17th, and to the alley behind our house...but then, as quickly as it came, it began resending. We had been surrounded, but the worst was over. We were safe.
It wasn't until the next morning, as dad and I drove around Columbus, that we realized the devastation the flood had caused. Just mere blocks away, the flood had reached the rooftops of houses, just mere blocks away, the flood has indefinitely closed the Columbus Regional Hospital, just mere blocks away, some people lost it all.
(Johnathon Moore Pike in Columbus...yes, there is a road under there.)
(2nd Street bridge.)
I feel a little guilty about the water sparing us, but above all, I feel blessed.
(PS...the tub fit!!)
