Hate to break up the celebration, but I was just in NJ this past weekend for my parents' 50th wedding anniversary surprise party. It was a bittersweet visit home.

What Floyd lacked in aeolean punch it made up for with a deluge, especially from Wilmington, NC (nearly 20" of rain in 24 hours) to North-Central NJ (over 15" of rain in just a few hours). Flying over southern NJ on the approach to Newark International, I couldn't pick out any prominent geographic features aside from the shoreline, for all was inundated. A network of little creeks looked more like the Chesapeake Bay's upper reaches as the floodwaters made the bottomlands all run together.

One of my sisters lost everything in the basement, including irreplaceable items such as photo albums, but otherwise was pretty lucky as the water came to the very top of the basement walls. Two sump pumps and a portable were no match for Floyd.

Another sister fared far worse. In just a couple of hours, the rivulet in the field behind the house became a torrential monster that enveloped her entire lower level. Surrounded by rushing water and trapped within the immediate neighborhood, all they could do is sit around in the candlelight (no electricity, gas or water, and no way out), staring at each other, watching the rising water and wondering if they would end up on the roof awaiting a chopper rescue. The waterline came within about 3 inches of flooding the second floor.

Everything outside, in the basement, in the garage and on the lower level of the house that was too heavy to move upstairs was destroyed.

I went by her house on Sunday after the waters receded. Re-reading my words above, I realize that I cannot adequately capture the devastation that I had witnessed. They still have no electricity, no phone (thank goodness for cellular), no water, no gas. Everything already smells of mildew. Those in the area who do have water must boil it before using it for bathing, drinking or cooking, since the treatment plants were also inundated. My sister and her family sleep in a hard-found hotel room some 30 miles away from the house and spend long days cleaning up.

Thank God so few were lost to the storm; it might have been much, much worse. In that light, this might seem like ungrateful whining, but my heart goes out to them and to all the others along the Atlantic seaboard who suffered a similar fate. It will be many months before their lives get back to normal.

Please don't stop praying yet.

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-Art