Water water everywhere

Just for perspective on all the floods and rain damage this week - much of Israel has had between 10-11 inches of rain, that's about what Katrina and Sandy dropped on most affected areas of the US. In the US they were predicting disaster if "Sandy drops 10 inches of rain".

Here in Israel many places have had flooding and storm damage, mostly minor, but in a few areas so bad people had to be evacuated in boats, their homes totally submerged. For the most part though it's been more a case of disruption and inconvenience rather than disaster. Not to dismiss financial losses lightly, but the Ayalon stream overflowing its banks and shutting down the adjacent highway and railway line for most of day or the flooding of a mall in Modi'in is not good, but there are worse things.

Doesn't mean that here in Israel some local councils here weren't negligent in preparing adequately, but this is a once in two decades or more storm for much of Israel and the concentrated intensity of the rainfall is far from your typical winter rainstorm - there have been years recently when we haven't had this much rain all winter. According to our balcony weather station we've had half the annual rainfall in 5 days.

Personally we're suffering from that most typical of Israeli problems, damp seeping through to some of our rooms because our roof is the balcony of the flat upstairs and it seems they haven't maintained the sealing on their tiles. Not much we can do about it until we get drier weather but it does mean that just as we're facing some of the coldest weather we've had in a few years now we can't use our airconditioner to heat our place because the ceiling wiring might be damp. Good thing for thermals.

So far no coastal surges but I gather the snow is still on its way. Kids can hardly contain their excitement. As J put it "if we get to play in the snow it'll be worth all these days cooped up at home because of the rain..."