I’ve been away from working on the blog. Here’s a couple of pictures of what I’ve been up to:
On Sunday, 7/21 we had a thunderstorm that dropped three inches of rain, with hail and wind in about an hour. It looked like this from my back door:
The result was flash flooding, mud and blocked roads. The good news is that it didn’t affect my house, but a few houses down the street ended up with water and mud in garages and yards. Some folks had their whole landscaping washed away and a small number of people had water in their living spaces. The county emergency services reported that about 100 homes were affected. Here’s the view from my yard about an hour after the rain stopped:
I live at the top of the street and this is the downhill side of the road up to my place. You can’t really see it in this picture, but the fire department responded and out in that mess are two firefighters trying to unblock the storm drains. At the height of the flooding the water was about a foot higher than this picture shows.
The county sent out road crews and this is what they had to deal with on Monday:
It was up to a foot of mud in the deepest places. There was no damage to our house, but roads have been a mess since. The county has had trucks and equipment out every day since and the roads are passable — dusty but passable. Our neighbours have had to hire private crews to come out and deal with the damage to their property. Sadly, not many people here have flood insurance. It will be a long road for some.
Two days after the flash flood Heather and I went to the beach:
and:
This is lighthouse point in Santa Cruz, CA. It’s one of our favorite places to visit.
The trip was planned long before the flood, but we saw no reasons to not to get out of town while they fixed our roads.
I you need me, I’ll be washing the car — again.
Andrew's View of the Week 
Yikes! You had way too much rain and we haven’t had enough. I bet you enjoyed your beach escape even more after that muddy mess in your neighborhood. Glad you didn’t have damage. Of course, since I love lighthouses, I loved that photo.
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It was nice to get away from the mud and let the road crews do their job without having to dodge them everything we wanted to go somewhere. That lighthouse is an old one. There aren’t many lighthouses out here on the west coast.
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I can tell that lighthouse is an older one. We didn’t see very many when we lived in Portland and traveled down the coasts of Oregon and northern California. But I wasn’t as interested in seeing them as I am now. I have a lighthouse map of all the ones in the US and it actually shows 44 in California!
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That’s more than I thought. I can only think of about four that I’ve seen.
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Some of them are probably offshore.
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The rains have destroyed a lot this year. In Kerala, our neighbouring state in two days it rained very heavily and there were landslides . In a minute everything on its way was destroyed. It is difficult to imagine the lives ofbthe people in such places. The lighthouse looks beautiful.
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It’s scary how fast a heavy rain can wash away a hill.
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Whoa! So wonderful that you’re on the hill and were relatively unscathed. Certainly does sound like a great time to get out of town. Fortunate.
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From what my neighbours said, the roads were a mess that first week. We still have crews out here fixing drainage problems.
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Gosh. Good thing you were able to get out at all!
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The county road crew managed to get one street fully open the night of the storm — just enough for most of us to have a way out. Since then, they’ve been very good about making sure residents have at least one road open to the area.
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That’s good of them.
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Yuck, what a mess. I’m surprised it didn’t all turn to steam as soon as the sun came out. Mother Nature is having a real hissy fit this year.
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We’ve had a lot of stuff this year. Today it’s smoke from the CA fires, sigh …
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Yikes, that’s a lot of water! I’m glad to hear you didn’t have any damage (other than a dirty car).
My poor car can’t remember what it’s like to be clean – one of these days I need to either take it to a car wash or get out the bucket and rags and do it myself. Funny how there always seems to be a higher priority, though… 😉
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Normally I don’t worry about washing the car, but it got a lot of mud on it that I don’t want tracked into the garage.
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Love the green rocks beach. We don’t have that around where I live
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I love the beach.
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That is a doozy. We’ve had only a few like that, and not as destructive. Glad it was OK for you.
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We did much better than some
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Wow, that sure was a rain storm. Happy to hear your house was OK. I love Santa Cruz/Carmel too. Nice seeing the photos. Keep enjoying summer.
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It was big. I’ve been told it’s the biggest storm here in about 5 years.
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It’s so strange, we have been experiencing unusual heat wave here in Portland, I’m glad you’re got to leave for a vacay
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We had an unusually hot July here and far more thunderstorm activity than normal.
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Oregon does not get enough rains this year
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It all came here to Nevada.
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That’s unfortunate
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I am glad your place was spared. Lots of weather related damage around this year again. Have a great break! 🙂
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There is. Today we have smoke in town from a forest fire in California.
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Indeed, scary business, floods and fires! On a lighter note, perhaps it’s Murphy’s Laws at work, you know, it always rains right after you wash your car? 🤪
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