Who’ll stop the rain? On Long Island, who knows?

So there I was, standing amid a torrential rain in a foot of water, stuffing a hastily made sandbag –– which was actually full of dirt –– into the crevices of my back door when lightning flashed and thunder rumbled across the steel-gray sky. Get the (insert expletive) inside! I thought.

I trudged through six inches of water in the alley until I reached the driveway, which resembled a fast-moving river. From there I leapt through water pools on the front lawn and raced up the stoop, which looked like a waterfall. I was panting like a dog when I got inside my house, my old, black work boots full of water.

I am, of course, speaking of Sunday, Aug. 14, which, to Long Islanders, will be remembered for years as The Day The Rain Did Not Stop.

According to the National Weather Service, Long Island was dead center in the path of a massive rainstorm that roared out of the southern Atlantic like a hurricane –– without the 75-mile-per-hour winds. The storm set the all-time single-day rain record at John F. Kennedy International Airport –– 7.8 inches. Merrick, where I live, received more than nine inches.

The storm woke my wife and me at around 7 a.m. Soon I was in the backyard, trying to stop floodwater from pouring into our laundry and family rooms via the back door. I started digging a trench across the backyard and filling plastic garbage bags with the dirt to make “sandbags” to act as a barrier in front of the door. I got one bag in position when the lighting struck and I had to retreat.

My wife and I lined the inside of the door with as many towels as we had. Still, the water kept coming.

We pulled out our wet-dry vacuum and sucked up water as it raced into our home. Then I paused. I slid across the laundry room –– which was already covered in two inches of water –– to our crawl-space door. Cautiously, I opened it and peered into the darkness. At the door’s edge, I could see that we had four inches of water in the crawl space. If it rose another two inches or so, it would inundate our home.

My wife moved our belongings upstairs while I continued vacuuming up water.