New York didn’t have a flood Friday. Or even much of a flood Saturday and Sunday. OBVIOUSLY it was a great relief that we weren’t swept away by a typhoon courtesy of Irene, but a very small part of me was just the tiniest bit disappointed. And that part is the part that is still convinced floods = funnest times ever, courtesy of midcentury children’s book author Lois Lenski.

The book is now out of print, but I read my aunt’s childhood copy of Lenski’s 1956 classic Flood Friday when I was very very young. The book, filled with Lenski’s own illustrations (Lenski was an illustrator before she began writing books herself), describes a terrible flood in a small Vermont town — I’m not sure if it’s the book’s fault or my own (I’m sure I glossed over descriptions of property damage, because hello, boring), but I finished it convinced that a flood is nothing if not an awesome adventure.

Since we missed out on a real hurricane here in New York, I thought I’d share what I learned about natural disasters from Flood Friday and its protagonist, the plucky eleven-year-old Sally Graham:

1) FLOODS ARE SO EXCITING.

a) You can swim in your house. (What!)

b) People will travel by boat through the streets. You MIGHT even get rescued by a neighbor in his boat, which he just steers right up to your bedroom window.

c) HELICOPTERS also get involved in the rescuing thing.

d) You’ll probably also climb trees for safety, which is just like hanging out in a tree house on a very exciting and rainy day. (And then a helicopter picks you up!)

2) Sleepover time! The families in Flood Friday all have to go to the high school, which is on higher ground, and sleep in the gymnasium for several days. It’s basically a GIANT sleepover with all of Sally Graham’s best friends. Never in my life has sleeping on cots seemed so awesome.

3) Emergency provisions!! You get to eat food out of an adorable prepackaged little kit! And/or whatever else is available! (My die-hard organic-food-junkie parents forbade any kind of prepackaged, processed food. So obviously, I was obsessed with it. And I mean, you know that if your house is under 16 feet of water, your parents will just be like, “Oh, here, eat a hundred Dunkaroos. Whatever!”). This brings me to

4) NO RULES IN A FLOOD.

I read Flood Friday over and over again, for years. That book made me a total disaster junkie — or maybe it just revealed the secret disaster junkie lurking inside me. So when Bloomberg ordered us to evacuate, I was just the tiniest bit thrilled. Also kind of scared, but still: I want to go swimming in my house!


 
 
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