Day 12
Weather: Deadly

You know how when you talk about the weather and people in other parts of the world say “oh, can you send us some”, or “you keep that where you are..”… I am living in a place that is currently going through the worst flooding it has seen since 1976.  Just like in Ipswich in 2011, it was the worst flooding since 1974, and then at the beginning of this year, another flood and everyone being on high alert.

So, three major flood incidents in my life in two years. Gratefully, my living situation in each of these incidents have been high and dry and there has been no loss to my family.  I only lost my business in 2011.

With my friend Ian visiting from Canada over the weekend, and with the sun coming out, and also being in a higher area of Colorado that while it had alerts, there was no localised flooding, we were able to travel to the outlet stores and then go grab some lunch – google Panera people – MY GOD – I had the Mediterranean Salad!!

Anyway, we are sitting eating our lunch and I look out the window to the largest rain drops I have ever seen. It was like the cloud was too full and they just had to fall out.  They were completely vertical drops – therefore no wind – and huge….like if you have seen a dime, that’s how big the drops were.  I had one of those passing thoughts I get where I’m saying in my head “watch what’s going on”.  So, we finish our lunch and it is now just bucketing down and there is major lightning going on. Major. Juli’s had her hair straightened, so she asked for volunteers to go get the car and bring it to the front door – well, she asked me first, and I thought she was kidding because me and driving in America, even in a carpark… I’m not ready. Luckily driving in Canada is the same as driving in the USA, so Ian took over and after a mad dash to the car which was a whole 2 metres – we were a little bit soaked.

So off we go to head home.

Holy crap. Because the ground has been so saturated, the run off was massive.  The water on the road was at least two inches and Juli had to put the car into 4WD. I knew we were safe. I feel stuff. I had no sense of dread. We had to take a detour because of the quantity of water on the motorway, and then we finally got home to a second drenching to get to the house.

From an incredibly beautiful day, to MAJOR flash flooding in less than an hour.  That’s how these floods seem to work here in Colorado.  So, there I am sitting at my chair quietly looking at the mammoth drops hitting the very dry concrete to being in traffic of people rushing to get home because the Castle Rock area is going to start being seriously dangerous.

Once again, the national alert system in this country is the BOM… bom in Australia needs to investigate.  I am not even an American, but the system knows I am here. I feel very loved!

It appears though that there are some Americans that are as commonsense challenged as Australians with people driving into waters over roads and finding that there is no road under the water.  Not following National instructions to leave and then being trapped. People going to get photos and being washed away.

There is more rain coming further up the state, and the downriver stuff is very real here because of the time the water has to travel to get away.  The BIG part of the picture here is the Rockies.  Thousands of feet of mountains that has run off.  That’s more water than a brain has abilities to contemplate.

There are more weather systems coming through up to Monday, so crossing fingers that people are paying attention by now and will be safe and loss will be reduced to property.

Juli, her family and I are safe.  Ian has a contingency plan on getting to the airport so everyone is safe.

All part of the adventure.
Much love
Amanda
Goddess of the Imperative