The following day was July 4th, which brought a series of torrential downpours throughout the afternoon and evening and on into the night as Hurricane Arthur, by then reduced to tropical storm status, walloped PTown on its way north along the eastern seaboard.
As the storm blew out of town on great gusts of wind early on the following morning, every last trace of humidity had been removed from the air. It had all been deposited in the Court Street Lake.
I got here ten minutes too late to get a photo of someone who was navigating their way down Court Street in a yellow rubber raft. Did anyone else get that picture?
Overnight, Arthur converted John Fay's garage into waterfront property.
Cars driving through 14 inches of water created a tide that washed fallen tree branches, twigs and other storm debris onto the "shoreline" along the sides of Court Street.
The lake lasted for two days as the overwhelmed storm drain system struggled with all that rainwater, along with more water being pumped toward the drain by neighbors on Winthrop Street, contending with several inches of water in their yards and basements.
Once again, Provincetown got lucky. As the strength of Arthur weakened we were spared from major damage or loss of life, and merely had to put up with a bit of inconvenience.
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