little venice

The last two days, my street and all surrounding streets have been flooding both in the morning and in the afternoon, and lasting about 5 hours each time. Living at sea level and 100 yards from Biscayne Bay, I have gotten used to a small amount of water in the streets at various times in the last four years, but these two days have been the worst ever.

Yesterday afternoon I could not take Chewy to the park because that would mean driving my car through all that water (which is made up of bay water that has come into the street through the sewer system, and this bacteria-ridden brackish water is not something I want to drive my car through, call me crazy.) When I cannot take Chewy to the park, that means we have to take a nice long walk but there was nowhere to walk without facing down foot-high water in the street so we ended up walking in circles for about a half hour.

This morning, after wandering the neighborhood again, I decided to call the Public Works Department of this fair city and.....it didn't go well. Some guy gets on the phone and proceeds to speak to me as if I was a 4 year old needing a lesson on the changing tides and how because it has rained so much the last 2 days (no, it really hasn't rained hardly at all the last 2 days, a couple of showers at night and I don't think it has rained at all in the last 24 hours.) there is nowhere for the water to go so when the tide comes in, the water has to come through the sewers and into the street. Gee, thanks for the lesson, but I have lived here for four years and am VERY familiar with the changing tides and have seen the bay water come up through the sewers many times but NEVER THIS BAD AND ALL I'M ASKING IS WHAT IS BEING DONE ABOUT IT BUT YOU CAN'T HEAR ME BECAUSE YOU ARE TOO BUSY TALKING ABOUT ALL THE RAIN WE HAVE (not)HAD!!!!!!! (*deep, cleansing breaths*)

He really could not answer me. He WAS helpful enough to tell me that the tide would be low again around 11:00 and the streets should correspondingly clear then as well. Thanks. I guess I will begin rearranging my life now around the tides since you are really not giving me any answer to when is this going to stop happening twice a day except for when it stops raining so much. (and it hasn't really been raining anyway so now you are just making me mad!)
My favorite part of the conversation was when he said he would connect me to the "Sewer Supervisor" who I was really excited to speak to, but alas, I only got his voicemail.
Guess he's out somewhere supervising the sewers. In the meantime, I need to go get Chewy a pair of rubber boots to match mine.