You should count yourself lucky - I love rainy areas - Im in Northern Utah and I hate the rain here - or lack thereof. I wish I could be where the Storms are - so have a good one!
Of course you can - I have seen it all the time, well, not so much anymore, since the cell phone industry has boomed so much. If you simply call the phone provider they should be able to help you out.
Honestly, I don\'t think you could unless you are able to either get your equipment for free or for dirt cheap. I built a quad-core computer a while back and it was ridiculously expensive - I wont be doing it again for a long time - although it was probably worth it.