Wild Monsoon Threatens My Home
… and me!!
I love the monsoon season and the wild, crazy storms we get during this time. This particular storm was absolutely breathtaking. First we saw lightning more than 20 miles away, but striking multiple times a second for hours. While we were on the leading edge, the cloud formations looked like long fingers, and we could see the lightning flashes above and between them. It was strange and surreal and stunning.
Then the storm reached us, and the temperature dropped 20 degrees in seconds. Suddenly hail was hammering my window, and the rain was coming down in thick sheets. Within minutes the water in the streets started to rise. The bad news is, we’re at the low end of a dead end street.
Maybe you can tell from the video still, which is looking out at our street from our driveway. On the left is a 7-foot block wall separating us from neighboring condos. At the bottom of this wall there are three or four little cutouts, 6 inches high, that supposedly allow water to flow through.
Well, not tonight. We experienced flash flood conditions and high winds. A friend told me large trees were felled not a mile away (good thing we cut down our termite infested trees that leaned toward our house). The streets might have been able to drain properly, except it’s “bulk trash” time in our neighborhood. Our street lacks a sidewalk, and no one wants to kill their grass by leaving a huge pile of trash sitting on it for two weeks, so everyone piles trash just over their property line on the street, and the city picks it up – this happens four times per year. Scheduled pick up was August 25, but here it is August 28 and the trash is still there. Blocking the water in the street from reaching the drain holes. Causing the water to flow into our yard, and up over our porch. At 9:30 pm we were half an inch away from having water come over the threshold of our house, with no end to the storm in sight.
So out into the street we went, to move all our neighbors’ trash piles either further into the street, or up onto their lawns. These are huge piles, generally of tree and shrub trimmings, but with the occasional piece of large wrecked furniture thrown in. Everything should be neatly bagged, but people from outside the neighborhood tend to scavenge these piles for scrap or useful items. I have no problem with that normally – I’m all for recycling and reusing.
But this time they cut open bagged lawn clippings, which were impossible to clear away in the flow of water, and these were mixed in with palm fronds that had large thorns on them. Also, some dog crap.
So it’s dark, I’m soaked, it’s cold, and I’m covered in lawn clippings, when my asthma kicks in big time. By the time I found my inhaler I could barely get air in or out of my lungs. I started to panic, which makes it get worse really quickly.
But the meds worked, and we cleared enough debris out of the path of the water that we were able to prevent the water from entering our house. For the second time this week. I’ve sent yet another letter off to City Street Maintenance before posting this and going to bed. They’ve promised to keep an eye on drainage in our neighborhood, but obviously it’s a roving, a lax, dare I say a lazy eye.
I’m exhausted. Goodnight.
August 29th, 2008 at 1:31 am
Good grief. What a night. I sure hope you make it through the night. Good job you got the inhaler in time, how scary.
Are the neighbors lazy for blocking the drains or is this just accepted behaviour?
Sucky end to an otherwise brilliant storm
August 29th, 2008 at 6:12 am
The neighbors aren’t lazy, exactly. Every 3 months neighborhoods get two weeks to put out bulk trash for city pickup, and we all time our tree trimmings, shrub trimming, back yard cleanup – anything that’s going to generate too much for the rubbish bin to hold – in line with these city pick ups. We’re supposed to set everything out, bundled neatly, at the front of our house, but not in the street. Our neighbors all put their stuff in the street though. I guess we’re all a bit lazy – no one tied their bundles of shrub trimmings together. But they all bagged their yard clippings and raked leaves, etc.
Usually the city picks the trash up on the scheduled date. Unfortunately this week they are five days late, and counting. And that would be fine any other time of year except monsoon season. The streets are a mess today – it’s wild looking out there. I just spent 20 minutes removing large tree limbs that had blown into our driveway so that I can drive to work this morning.
August 29th, 2008 at 6:15 am
Wow. Those continuous flashes would seem corny in a horror movie. You know, lightening never flashes so many times in such a short period. Well, there you go.
I remember nights in Nicaragua years ago and the astonishingly beautiful forks of lightening way off in the distance, flashing for hours but never ever reaching us as we sat out in the open drinking beer. No rain. No thunder. Just the forks.
So glad you got to your inhaler in time. Hoping you’re better now.
August 29th, 2008 at 6:33 am
Thanks Robert! I’m fine. The lightning WAS really crazy. Their must have been hundreds of strikes per minute. And this went on for hours. Clintus reported power going out all over the city. One of my friends had to spend the night here, and she reported that huge mature trees had fallen all along one of the city’s main roads. I suspect our trash pickup is going to have to wait – I sure hope it doesn’t storm again in the next few days. But by the looks of things outside right now, it’s going to rain again tonight!
October 18th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
My god – I missed this post. I know how exhausting and frightening it is to watch water slowly rising to the point at which it floods your home. To have the trash blockage issue and asthma to deal with too… wow. Glad it was OK in the end. Ugh.