Tropical Storm Arthur

So, I guess as payback for the hurricanes of last year being a total bust, this year we have tropical storm Arthur. Arthur started yesterday. We were loving the storm; the thunder; the lightning: enjoying the thought of the Hopkins road being flooded for a day. Kind of like the thrill of a blizzard. Well, it ended up being a little more than we bargained for.
The rain and storm continued through the night and by morning we knew we needed to make a grocery run because food wouldn't be coming in for a few days for sure. I headed out and had Brynn with me to take pictures of the village. This is what we saw:

Pretty much every lot in Hopkins was totally flooded. Then we got to what we call, the junction. The junction is where the Hopkins road comes into town. Everyone was just standing in the junction watching the water come to town.
When we got back we noticed that there was lots more water than when we left. The news started coming in: 6 people dead on the Hummingbird highway; one drowned in Sittee River; 20 animals dead on one ranch; a cow dead on the road with a crocodile 'bite'; Belizean Dreams (our resort on the south end) totally flooded out. The guests from there and from Hamanasi resort started moving in - the refugees:

These are the human refugees wandering in down the path by our house. (It gives you a bit of an idea what kind of water we are in but I'll get to that. ) Michael, a friend of ours, was at Belizean Dreams during the exodus and he heard mewing under the office. He looked under and found two baby kittens and their dead mom. He crawled in through the water as far as he could go and the kittens swam out to him. Of course, Michael couldn't keep them so he brought them here. Now we have a box with this in it:


The white one is Meko and the other one is Flit. They are not our only animal refugees. We also have this hanging out on our deck:









Ok, OK, here are the pics you are probably waiting for. Here is what we are living in now:


This is the front. The gardens are not so pretty any more. The rest are of the back lot, the outbuildings and some of our friends and kids wandering around. On the plus side there was no real wind, we have lots of food and will be fine as long as we need to be. We are now living in the Caribbean Sea rather than beside it!

As of now, everyone is cuddled up in their respective villas watching a movie or playing games. What are my kids and their friends doing? They are swimming in the pool, of course. What else does one do in a tropical storm?