When it rains in Charleston....

Charleston, the beloved city in which we live, was basically built AT sea level. Thankfully, unlike New Orleans, it is not built below sea level, but as I write to you I am sitting at approximately 22 ft. above sea level. And since this is one of the oldest cities in America, the drainage system is not exactly what one might call "state of the art." Unless possibly you are referring to the old colony formerly known as "Carolina," which was first settled in 1670. It was possibly state of the art then.

All that to say...when it rains in Charleston at high tide, you get floods. Thursday morning it rained right at high tide and parts of downtown were flooded all day. The photo above is of Hwy. 17, a major thoroughfare through Charleston, and the water was that deep almost all day. Traffic was horrendous, and there were cars stalled out everywhere.

The parking lot at Jeff's bank was so flooded they actually considered closing the bank since it was hard for anyone to actually get to the door. I was hoping to get out of the house a little more on Thursday since some good friend loaned us their laptop for me to use, but I didn't because I was worried about our little honda making it through the deep water present in some areas of town.

One time when my Dad was in school here, his classmates actually paddled a canoe to class, it was so bad. Thankfully, the street right in front of our house has yet to flood bad, which is a relief whenever hurricane season starts.