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"I'M CALLING BECAUSE THERE IS water in our basement!" said the tenant who woke me with his phone call this morning. "I'm using a little shop vac, but it's getting ahead of me. I will need help." Reader Dear, how was I to know that the first day of my five-day vacation would be the very day that that One who controls the cloud system would forget to turn off the water in my home area?! Already last night, after my arrival here in the Outer Banks, my yard man himself had called to inform me that there was water in our very own basement. Oh, great grungy tribulation! "I cleaned some of it up, but it's getting worse," he said.

"I'll call the plumber," I told my tenant. "He lives just up the street from you."

"That's good," the tenant replied, "because lots of roads are closed due to flooding."


I hung up and called the plumber. Not reaching him on his cell phone, I called his home phone number. "Hello," said his wife; and, when I'd told her why I was calling---"We've got phones to every ear! Ron's having a time of it; there are no pumps to be had in the county! Roads are closed all over the place. You should have seen the big equipment trucking by here; there was trouble down the road at the creek--I think maybe a car in the water!"




"We've got tons of water here, too!" I said.

"Thank goodness it's all staying where it belongs!"











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