![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cellioThe phrase for the night was "that's why we have insurance".
A big storm rolled through Pittsburgh around 6:30-7:00 tonight. It dumped massive quantities of rain and we had several short power outages. But then it started to die down and I knew of no reason the 7:30 meeting at my synagogue would be cancelled, so out I went, dodging a couple intersections closed by accidents.
I walked into the building to find no one obviously around but the door unlocked, the lights on... and the alarm blaring and two big puddles in the lobby, one at the foot of a staircase. After calling out didn't produce any results, I headed out to the relative quiet of the front porch to try to call the director (failed). By this time another person had arrived for the meeting, and while we were talking about what to do next we saw people moving around inside so we went back in, where we joined a water-diversion effort. The director was already there and told us the sanctuary and chapel were fine but parts of the upstairs were not. The sound of a waterfall in the stairwell confirmed her story. We were then joined by my rabbi and the meeting chair, who had been in the sanctuary tending to torah scrolls (all fine, whew). Most of us headed to the gift shop, where water was pouring in from above and chunks of ceiling were floating in the ankle-high water, to rescue as much as we could. Most of the chumashim were shrink-wrapped; many of the other books weren't. :-(
Apparently we lost part of the roof -- probably two parts, since the gift shop wasn't getting its water from the stairwell. Oof.
It puts the water in my basement into perspective.
A big storm rolled through Pittsburgh around 6:30-7:00 tonight. It dumped massive quantities of rain and we had several short power outages. But then it started to die down and I knew of no reason the 7:30 meeting at my synagogue would be cancelled, so out I went, dodging a couple intersections closed by accidents.
I walked into the building to find no one obviously around but the door unlocked, the lights on... and the alarm blaring and two big puddles in the lobby, one at the foot of a staircase. After calling out didn't produce any results, I headed out to the relative quiet of the front porch to try to call the director (failed). By this time another person had arrived for the meeting, and while we were talking about what to do next we saw people moving around inside so we went back in, where we joined a water-diversion effort. The director was already there and told us the sanctuary and chapel were fine but parts of the upstairs were not. The sound of a waterfall in the stairwell confirmed her story. We were then joined by my rabbi and the meeting chair, who had been in the sanctuary tending to torah scrolls (all fine, whew). Most of us headed to the gift shop, where water was pouring in from above and chunks of ceiling were floating in the ankle-high water, to rescue as much as we could. Most of the chumashim were shrink-wrapped; many of the other books weren't. :-(
Apparently we lost part of the roof -- probably two parts, since the gift shop wasn't getting its water from the stairwell. Oof.
It puts the water in my basement into perspective.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-19 11:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-21 04:11 am (UTC)