Flooding in New Hampshire

When it comes to precipitation, the state of New Hampshire is generally known more for its snowy winters than for such things as rainstorms and flooding. However, it's the latter two that residents have been suffering from the last few years. While flood damage has been minimal since the floods of 2006 and 2007, early 2010 has brought along a brand new spree of bad weather.

On Monday, March 15, water levels reached up to 7 inches in some towns. Though the rain ended that same day, many rivers were still above flood stage. Rain on this level, especially on the seacoast, causes more than just damp socks. The costs of repairing home and property damage can be immense, considering the mold problems that can result from a house being filled with water. There's also been a frequency of power outages, that's left many stranded for days at a time in homes that have neither heat nor electricity.

Another dangerous result side effect of the floods is their effect on driving conditions. While an experienced driver can usually navigate through a rainstorm successfully, it doesn't help when driveways are covered in water. It's even worse when a driver's usual routes are completely blocked off. Roads were closed all over the state, forcing residents to take unfamiliar detours - which caused some to fear that they might not even make it home at all.

This can be both inconvenient - and dangerous - for those people that commute outside of town for school or work. One such person is Saifa Meksavanh, a resident of Newmarket who works in Portsmouth five days a week. Usually, this is a fairly quick and easy commute.

"It normally takes me about 20 minutes to get home from work," Meksavanh was quoted as saying, "But this ended up taking me over an hour because of all the closed roads. It took me to back roads I didn't even know about. In the flood before this one, it took me forever to get home because the usual road to get to Newmarket was closed and there was a police officer telling us to turn around. And so I did - I decided to go through Newfields but when I tried to do that, a tree had fallen down in the middle of the road. Another road had live wires on it. All the four different routes I tried were closed and I had to go all the way back through Portsmouth to get home. I was worried I wasn't even going to be able to make it home, I was like, 'Should I get a hotel?' There was no power at all."

Many residents have their own, similar stories. It can get especially bad in a town like Newmarket, because it's situated directly over the Lamprey River. However, like many others, Saifa doesn't think there's any way to fix the problem - as he says, the state has already taken lots of precautions based on past flooding.

That's always the problem with natural disasters, though. Whether its rain, snow, tornadoes or earthquakes, there's really nothing that can be done except to get prepared and hope for the best. As much as people think that they control everything on this planet, sometimes all it takes is a little water to show how little control we really have.