So, Hurricane Kyle apparently heard about the wall of blocks that was put up to stymie his destructive wrath and he left town without even trying. Heh.
Kyle did bypass us mostly, although we did get a fair amount of rain and some moderate winds late last night. The block wall seems to have worked well enough. It is not perfect, but it kept the majority of the water from running straight down the bulkhead and into the basement, and that was its intended purpose, after all.
You can see from the picture that some gravel washed up against the base of the wall, and I had expected that. Because that area is made of very porous gravel, some water simply seeped through and got into the basement that way, but not in the volume of storms past.
Hurrah.
Now I need to go to work and make some money to pay for that pretty new deck. If I do anything fun, I'll take some pictures and post them here.
And thanks to everyone who has sent me kind notes of concern as this storm worked its way up the coast toward Maine. It was touching to know you all were thinking of us.