“Abba, come quick!” Merav called, and Ellis jumped out of an afternoon nap. Wearing a comfortable pair of purple sports “training” paints, he went outside, to a flooded patio, with torrential rains continuing to fall.
The Shumans’ back patio is the lowest point in the backyard; a long slope of grass and untended weeds leads down to it. The rains were falling so heavily, that the ground could not soak in anymore. The only place to go was the patio, and from there, the muddied waters could only go into the Shumans’ living room.
The Shumans raced into action. Erez, who had also been upstairs unaware of the coming flood, tried to get the water off the patio. But there was no place lower to which he could move the water. Erez grabbed a bucket, and began scooping out pail after pail of the water, throwing it into the terraced garden beyond. Only later would Erez realize that he was wearing his good sports shoes, while he stood in water that was three inches deep.
Ellis tried to divert the water, so that the flood gushing down the backyard slope would not reach the patio. He dug a small channel, and the water veered to a different part of the backyard. As he worked there, drenched through and through, Ellis couldn’t remember if he had put his glasses on when he jumped out of bed. The rain was so thick that he could barely see past his glasses anyway.
Merav hurried to build a dam - a wall of towels at the entrance to the door leading into the living room. The water on the patio began to recede, and finally the downpour slowed to just a strong drizzle.
It was time to assess the damage. The dirty waters had completely soaked the living room carpet. Brown liquid had made it to low places under the kitchen refrigerator, and under one of the sofas. A pile of old newspapers, luckily already read, was now no more than mush. Luckily, except for the carpet, no real damage was done, other than washing the entire downstairs’ floor with a muddy rinse.
After a good hour’s work of cleaning up the mess, slowly but surely sweeping and squee-geeing the water out the front door, the house was safe. It was then that Jodie and Raute walked in, full of tales of their long, frustrating bus ride home from Jerusalem, fighting rain and traffic. Somehow, their story lost some of its impact in comparison to the heavy flooding in their home.
Despite all efforts to keep the floodwaters away from everything electric, it was at this point that the lights in the Shuman home went out. Electricity was soon restored, and would be in heavy demand - with use of the washing machine, drier, heaters, and a television newscast reporting on heavy flooding in other parts of Israel - especially Raanana and Kfar Saba.
The Shumans did not need to see the floods reported on the news. they had survived a flood of their own.
The rains have subsided, but not the Shumans’ rain-induced flood problems. Ellis came home this morning to doublecheck that the there wasn’t water collecting again on the patio in the morning’s light drizzle. All seemed to be in order, but not so later in the day when Ellis finished work.
The ceiling in the living room over the couch was showing signs of dampness. Ellis quickly unborrowed the family’s ladder from the neighbors, and went up onto the roof. As has happened a few times in the past, the drainpipe on the roof had clogged up, and the roof was covered with six inches of rainfall. Ellis dived in, and unplugged the drain. For the next half an hour water drained down, off the Shumans’ roof.
The ceiling will dry, the carpet will be cleaned. And the earth will soak up all this massive amount of rain!
You can read the October 1996 edition of The Shuman News.