2003-07-30
Freak Weather

Well, it has been an exciting few days here in the desert.

On Monday, I had to go to a meeting in Los Angeles. Well, on the way back, there was a traffic jam, in the rain, in the mountains that separate Los Angeles from home. I hate driving in the rain, hate it even more at night, and utterly loath doing it on a motorcycle, my only means of transportation. So, since motorcycles have air-cooled engines, there I was lane-cutting, during a night rain.

That was only a prelude. Then there was Tuesday.

We had a full fledged all out no holds barred storm. For 20 minutes, it was rain so intense you couldn't see 50 feet, and hail, and a tornado. When it cleared, there was debris everywhere, mostly plant parts - branches, trunks, whole trees. The intersections were all flooded since they're at a lower elevation than the streets. I was beginning to despair of ever being able to cross the major street that would take me home, since the water was getting a bit deep in places. That was after the storm, just runoff.

Yes, here in the desert we had a storm, with hail and a tornado, and a flood. I'm not originally from here, so I am more used to severe weather, but my neighbors were walking around shell-shocked. I was only shocked at the intensity. Whole pieces of aluminum sheeting were ripped off the carports and flung into the parking lot. There's going to be a lot of cleaning up after THIS mess.

This won't be forgotten any time soon.

At the meeting on Monday, though, I met someone who is the brother of someone I went to High School with on the other side of the country, in Georgia. Now that is a bizarre coincidence

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