Le deluge

The sun is out this morning, but the forecast calls for another round of storms tonight.

I dumped 1.1 inches of water out of the rain gauge this morning after a night that saw whole towns flooded, levees topped and rivers out of their banks throughout northeast Arkansas and southeast Missouri.

At last report, seven Arkansans died in last night’s storms, including four in Vilonia where I stopped for a late Subway lunch last July 28 on my way home from riding in the west. I wonder if the Subway survived. Vilonia is about 100 miles southwest of here and about 30 miles north of Little Rock.

For all their faults, the folks at the local TV station did a splendid job of keeping their viewers advised of the storms and the tornados they spawned. In my opinion, they completely outclassed the competition in Little Rock and Memphis.

I seized the moment yesterday afternoon and mowed the front yard while it was relatively dry.

The National Weather Service predicts the next wave of storms will hit us around 4 p.m. Flooding isn’t a concern up here on Crowley’s Ridge, but we get a little worried when we hear the Brookland tornado sirens.