The ports of heaven ...

... opened and poured about a gadzillion of liters of water onto Madison, especially downtown and the Campus area. After like 15 minutes or so, the sewers couldn't take it anymore and spilled out water instead of draining it. Streets became rivers, parking lots became duck ponds and some poor peoples appartments became fishtanks as they submerged completely. Here's a couple of shots "borrowed" from the local newspaper as I didn't have my camera with me.

The parking lot of an appartment block. I walk past this place every day on my way to UW.

This intersection is in 5 min walking distance from my house.

At the back of the UW police station, about 5 min walking distance from the Biochemistry building.

Our Institute got hit pretty bad as well ... honestly, I had never seen a flooded elevator before ;) But that was not a big deal compared to the sub basement that had 5 inches of water standing there. Sub basement, huh? Doesn't sound so serious ... well it does when you know the NMR facility is done there, with instruments worth a couple of million dollars! So when they called for help, a bunch of people went downstairs quickly, took of shoes and socks, waded through ankle high water and helped moving the endangered equipment of the floor onto an elevated position. Hope to get some pictures of it, then I will post them here.

Final words: did that storm cool off Madison? No, of course not! It's still friggin' hot and muggy here! Waiting for the next storm ...