The prolonged series of violent thunderstorms that hit this region last Thursday was surprising both in its ferocity and its aftermath. We were fortunate, no problems in our direct area, but not far away from where we are, roads were flooded and so were people's basements. Actually there's heavy equipment far down the street at a house backing on to the ravine, and it seems a basement there was invaded with rain, or perhaps there was a sewage backup.

 

Three years ago a multi-million Combined Sewage Storage Tunnel was built and put into service by the city to forestall just such events. Regardless it was overwhelmed last week, when 315 million litres of contaminated water -- sewage mixed with rain -- was sent into the Ottawa River. There was insufficient capacity in this new storage tunnel to accommodate the sudden surge brought on by the rain.There were parts of the city that received 700 mm or more packed into a few hours from the intense downpours.

Banks burst at one place in the Rideau Canal, streets and parking lots and basements flooded. To say that this has been an unusual summer is a gross understatement. Fire crews were out pumping out basements and people were forced to throw out carpeting, drywall, furniture and heaven knows what else, as a result of the flooding their homes experienced.

 

As for us, all that water was unusual, but there was nothing untoward happening that couldn't be handled by our immediate landscape. The forest was inundated and it managed to accommodate all the rain that came pounding down without additional mishap. Rainwater dripped from the trees when we entered the ravine later in the day once the rain had stopped, and the forest floor was utterly sodden, the creek ran high and tumultuously downstream to the Ottawa River, yet otherwise nothing out of the ordinary occurred.

 

Our garden was drenched, some plants looked fairly unhappy but they recovered quickly even though we received rain following that event, each and every day. With the exception of today and yesterday. No rain, just cool temperatures and high humidity. Yesterday under dark-streaked clouds, today mostly sunny, perfect summer days.

Randy and Andrea went off to spend the later morning and afternoon downtown. They'll go to Byward Market and poke about elsewhere in the downtown area. I'm planning on making a cheese quiche for dinner, along with a garden salad and preparing fresh Ontario strawberries for dessert. Last night we had chops on the barbecue and they went with a Moroccan cous-cous salad and to finish things off, Irving made some of his wonderful vanilla ice cream to have with luscious big cherries.

We were out in the ravine with Jackie and Jillie, in the early afternoon, taking our time and just moseying along. It will take quite some time yet before the forest dries out from the constant inundation it's been treated to this month, but it will take more than two days without rain to accomplish that. After the forest hike we left Jackie and Jillie, two unhappily abandoned little dogs, to go off to the supermarket for our weekly food shopping expedition.