Who Sounded The Alarms

We had gotten so much rain in such a short period of time that the river seemed to reach flood levels almost over night. Some people started moving out of their homes when sandbagging of the levee's started. However, we wasn't those people, growing up on the river and seeing it rise and fall too many times makes a person wait a bit longer than people who've never lived in a flood plain. I attended some of the town meeting and listened to the experts and the mayor tell us we'd probably be OK and they also informed us, if the levee did breech they would sound the tornado alarms and then we would have somewhere around six hours to get out of town. I had already packed important papers, pictures and the like and put them in the trunk of the car just in case we had to make a fast exit. I have a small suit case on wheels that we call our electronic bag, in this bag I keep the camera, chargers, mp3 player, my daughters Nintendo, with enough room left to fit our two laptops. When we'd go to bed at night we'd put everything in that bag, just in case. The worry and fear of the levee breaking was always there but, it was worse at night when I'd lay my head down on my pillow and listen to the rain coming down outside. Just what we needed, more rain.

One weekend night my daughter had went to spend the night with her cousin so it was just me and the dogs at home and it was still raining. I went down to the community building and had a few cups of coffee with some of the people sitting around waiting for the guardsmen and local men to come check in to rest and grab a bite to eat...I was hoping to hear good news but they were beginning to get worried, oh great!

Later at home, it's 2 A.M. and I can't sleep, probably due to three cups of coffee, rain and worry, so I have the TV on in the living room just for the noise and I'm in the kitchen playing on the computer. Then I hear it... OMG... The sound of sirens going off... I slammed my laptop shut, threw it in the bag, let the dogs in the house and got their leashes on in record time. I had the bag, the dogs, my keys and my phone trying to call my sisters as I was headed to the front door. My heart was pounding faster than it ever had before...Then I saw it!! There was a darn police chase on the TV with sirens blaring...I had to do a double take, Whew!! After that adrenalin rush it was a couple more hours before I finally got to sleep, and NO, I didn't sleep with the T.V. on.