The Flood

Crash on the Levee (Down in the Flood)

WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN

Crash on the levee, mama
Water’s gonna overflow
Swamp’s gonna rise
No boat’s gonna row
Now, you can train on down
To Williams Point
You can bust your feet
You can rock this joint
But oh mama, ain’t you gonna miss your best friend now?
You’re gonna have to find yourself
Another best friend, somehow
Copyright © 1967 by Dwarf Music; renewed 1995 by Dwarf Music.

“Yeah, it’s wet down there.”

The twin towers of destruction are Fire and Flood. According to the Bible, flooding is a narrative where God, distressed by human wickedness, sends a year-long global deluge to destroy all life, sparing only a guy named Noah and his family, sending Noah on a mission to corral ALL the animals, and find a way to get them on his yacht, I mean Ark, which is what they called yachts in those days. This is not a creation story, more of a “de-creation” event, a return to factory settings. The world reverses itself to a state of chaos, in preparation for a reset, or new beginning. In this story, the flood lasted 40 days, with waters prevailing for 150 days.

One week ago, this past Saturday morning, at around 2:45 am, a watermain broke near our apartment building, spilling what was estimated as 11,000 gallons of water per minute, for a duration of about 45-60 minutes. By the time we were alerted by the fire alarm, our underground garage was flooded to a level of about 3-4 feet of water and earth, car chemicals, and untold pathogens. They call it black water. It needed to be pumped out and taken to some undisclosed location for “disposal”.

Our car was a casualty in this flood. While the jury, and adjusters, are still out, in fact have yet to return my calls or emails, it appears that the car I bought in 2023 is likely “totaled,” just like the blue car that preceded it.

Losing this car means a few things. A car can be replaced, but most likely that will entail taking out another loan, forcing me to make payments for anywhere from 4-7 years. At age 68, I am not looking to add payments to what will certainly be declining income. So I ask myself this question:

Do I even need a car?

That is the question I am taking the opportunity to ask myself. Costs of having a car can exceed $1000 per month in expenses, including car payments, insurance and the rising costs of gas. In our part of the woods, current gas price is just below CDN $2.20 per litre, (equivalent to about USD$6.15 a gallon.) But it is estimated with the ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz, gas prices will soon explode, creating a crisis that will make 2008 pale in comparison. Investing in anything but beachside property in Hell, or luxury handbaskets, is a fool’s game.

My wife and I feel like we are living in a state of shock. In the past five years, we survived cancer, a triple bypass, a car accident, and now a flood.

After 45 minutes on the sidewalk, at about 3:30 am we were allowed back into our building, as the damage was done. The fire department shut off our power, due the flooding of the electrical room. We went back to bed, but sleeping was almost impossible. From 3:30 am to about 5:00 pm in the afternoon, we had no power. There were no emergency lights in our hallways, so the halls and stairwells were pitch black, necessitating the use of flashlights just to see. We live on the fourth floor, and because there was no electricity, the elevator was also not in service. We walked up and down the 4 flights of stairs, in complete darkness using flashlights and hand rails.

Later in the day, I walked up to the neighborhood supermarket to buy a large block of ice to put in the refrigerator, but when I arrived, the power had come back on.

It could have been worse.

The watermain could have exploded during the work day when the restoration crew was under the building.

22 cars were essentially destroyed, the elevator is out of service, and the insurance company has yet to call me back. No one was injured.

“Yeah, it’s wet down there.”

Photo of our car, after some of the black water had been pumped out. You can see how far up the car the water had been by the dried mud. Objects that had been in the front seat, were in the back seat, having floated there. the restoration crew has been cleaning up the remains of the flood in the parkade, collating all the personal effects that neighbours stored down there. I had two bins, one bin with some great records I had found on the street, unsold leftovers from a garage sale, and another bin that has a hose in it, and some painting supplies. There was also a boom mic stand, and my radiation mask from my cancer treatments

Lost in the Flood

And everybody's wrecked on Main Street
From drinking unholy blood
Sticker smiles sweet as Gunner breathes deep
His ankles caked in mud
And I said, "Hey, gunner man, that's quicksand
That's quicksand, that ain't mud
Have you thrown your senses to the war
Or did you lose them in the flood?“

Bruce Springsteen