Damp basements, stalled highway projects and welcome, welcome rain. That's how May 2008 will be remembered.

The combination of a blizzard at the beginning of the month and a series of rainy days toward the end has earned this May a spot in the record books, to the consternation of some.

Almost two inches of rain have fallen in town in the past week. Many unhappy residents woke up last Saturday morning to find water in their basements.

"It's never a good thing when you get water in your basement," said Mike Harsma, manager of Ace Rental Place and Discount Lumber.

On Tuesday, Harsma was having a hard time keeping sump pumps and other pumps in stock.

At Newkirk's Ace Hardware on West Main, sump pumps disappeared off the shelves Saturday morning, according to Russ Mack.

"People were in here bright and early, smiling and asking for sump pumps," Mack said.

When the store had sold its stock of between 25 to 30 sump pumps, people bought other pumps and water-sucking vacuums, he said.

"If it would pump water, they wanted it," Mack said.

After several years of drought, the abundant moisture caught many homeowners off guard, according to Harsma.

Most houses built in the past 15 years have sump pumps that were never called into use, he said. People took it for granted that their pumps would work when the water rose.

Compounding the problem was the heavy snow that fell at the beginning of the month. The snow damaged trees, filling roofs and gutters with debris, Harsma said.

Downspouts, if they were pointed away from a house's foundation, were most likely clogged with sticks and twigs, holding the water close to the house where it could work its way through the foundation.

Or in some cases, the water table rose for the first time in years. Mack said several customers reported soggy basements for the first time in the 20 to 50 years they had lived in their homes.

The rain that fell Monday and Tuesday was enough to make this the wettest May on record in Rapid City and at Fort Meade, according to hydrologist Melissa Smith of the National Weather Service.

Readings taken at the weather service office near Star Village indicated 9.45 inches of precipitation for the month as of midnight Tuesday, enough to beat the previous record of 9.21 inches set in 1962. The city picked up .86 inches of rain over Monday and Tuesday.

Fort Meade, east of Sturgis, received 11.22 inches of precipitation this month to set a new May record. May's record is second only to June 1976, when 11.45 inches of precipitation fell.

Since January, Rapid City has received 12.13 inches of precipitation, almost 7.5 inches above normal, according to Smith.

Readings at the airport are slightly behind, but the past weekend's rainfall pushed May's total of 7.06 inches into third place there for the wettest May on record.

After enjoying a relatively dry winter, construction crews had been ahead of schedule on several highway projects in the area, but that all changed this week, according to local engineers.

"It set things back about two weeks," said Gary Engel, area engineer for the state Department of Transportation. "We're going to need hot, dry days."

Of the biggest concern are two projects on the westbound lanes of Interstate 90 between Black Hawk and Sturgis.

Crews had begun working seven days a week before the rain stopped them, Engel said. The project is scheduled for completion before the Sturgis motorcycle rally begins in August, he said.

Work on Exit 61 is still ahead of schedule, Engel said.

City residents living along Anamosa Street west of La Crosse Street will be disappointed to learn that the scheduled reopening of the first block of that project, between La Crosse and Racine Street, is now on hold.

"It will take several days of good sunny weather to dry out that dirt," public works director Robert Ellis said.

Ellis said city crews are busy repairing potholes that appeared after the rain.

Pennington County highway director Hiene Junge said county roads survived the recent downpours well, with only a few spots reporting water running over the roads.

County crews will be out this week smoothing gravel roads and filling potholes.

With more rain expected today, there is still a chance for more records and more construction delays, Smith said.

May's moisture also served another purpose: The drought designation for Bennett, Butte, Haakon, Jackson Lawrence, Meade and Pennington counties was lifted Wednesday by the National Weather Service, hydrologist Smith said.

Adding a word of caution, Smith said drought conditions could return. The long-range forecast for June, July and August is for above-normal temperatures and below-normal precipitation.

Fall River, Harding, Perkins and Ziebach counties are still listed as abnormally dry.

Contact Andrea Cook at 394-8423 or andrea.cook@rapidcityjournal.com.