When Ida blew through Milford and Pike County a couple of weeks ago, I was not overly concerned. We have been through the wind and the rain that hurricanes moving up the coast have brought in the past. We have leaned to dig in our heels and hope for the best, to be spared downed trees, downed power lines and the power outages that go along with them, and flooding from the torrential rains. Mostly, we are spared.
However, Ida was special. The amount of rain that was dumped if not a record, was certainly close to it. Many of us here in Pike suffered basement flooding; I did too, and my submersible pump was doing an admirable job pumping the water out — then the power went out; so did the pump. Hoping for the best, I went to bed.
At 10:30 p.m. I checked to see how bad things were in the cellar. Water was approaching 30 inches deep, water continued to squirt from the old stone walls, and the rain showed no sign of letting up.