Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Into Each Life, Some Rain Must Fall....


Or, maybe a lot of rain.

On October 30th, it started raining here about 10:00 p.m.
Softly at first.  Then it began to POUR.
And, it poured and it poured.

By 4:30 a.m., it began to let up.
By then, we had over a FOOT of rain here.

Remember my boast about my new bed?


How it had worked with a three inch rain?
Two of those inches in a hour.


Well...after two inches an hour, for SIX hours,
it wasn't so pretty.


The water came pouring over the brick edging.  It rolled up the cardboard
and the newspaper we'd laid under the mulch.


It washed out gravel and picked up stepping stones, 
and stacked one on top of another.


It sheared off weeds and grass, from under the newspaper and mulch.


It washed debris against our not-so-sturdy new fenced area.


It washed stones from the Rio.


And, crushed granite, .....


....into the Rio.


It built up debris against the house and the fences.

3:00 a.m., Thursday, October 31, 2013

It rushed like this, through the circular drive, for many hours.
And, deposited about 4" of rain IN the garage.

We worked hard to keep it out of the house, 
sweeping it off the front porch as fast as we could.
That worked.


By morning's light, the waters had receded a bit.
But, it had done some damage.


It washed away some of the cart path.
But, the creek had gone down enough to be inside its banks.


Large trees, and a smoker from down the street, deposited on the 10th tee box.


These trees, slammed against a low water crossing bridge, must have contributed
to the water backing up.

We were SO lucky.  The water is out of the garage, with no real damage.
We can restore the mulch and the plants.

But, many of our neighbors had water rushing 
THROUGH THEIR HOUSES!

Carpets are ripped up, and laying in driveways.
Not sure how much wall and furniture damage there is.

But, as far as I know, nobody was hurt.
In other areas of this flood, that wasn't the case.

9:00 a.m. October 31.

People were being smart, and not trying to cross Cypress Creek here.
This was way higher than we had seen before.

So, today I'm grateful we are all OK.

We're looking into flood insurance.
And, we're buying some sand bags.

We had about 20" of rain at Patchwork Garden, in October.
That's plenty, thanks.

Did I mention, we have rain forecast for today?

Happy Gardening...
~~Linda~~

8 comments:

  1. Wow, sorry to hear and I'm glad your house sustained no inside flooding. So sorry about the work, but as a LA, I don't think one can plan for anything of that magnitude, and not have something better looking than a massive flood control structure & a light wallet.

    Your 1st pics remind me of some monsoon season events at my old house, once a 4" rain / 45 minutes. But at least it wasn't the rest of the pics...hours and hours of deluge, though I recall a 13" event near there that did your damage across a whole neighborhood...gritty foothills "soil", even boulders sheeted downhill. City built a diversion dam! So glad you reported back; I asked my friend Daphne if all was OK, as she's downstream from your area not far, but at least on high ground.

    Hang in there!

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  2. We had 15 inches from the same system in 24 hours. We had some fence damage and damage to the private gravel road leading to our house and some of my beds were destroyed, but we are ok and I`m so glad the water did not get into your home! We will recover, but it has been quite the year for damage to the gardens from weather.

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  3. That's just what you didn't need with your garden looking so beautiful just days ago. Good to hear that you are okay with no damage to the house, a flooded house is awful. The garden can be repaired and this was quite a rare event.

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  4. Oh my! So glad to hear everyone is okay. We just keep praying the next rain event will land in the reservoirs - the lake is still so low. It's hard to believe with all the rain we've had.

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  5. I'm sure glad your house is okay, but I'm sorry about all your hard work in the garden being washed away. Nothing can quite prepare you for these freakish rain storms. We got 8 inches. There was some minor destruction in the garden, but nothing serious. After the bad flood we had in January 2012, we've tried to make some drainage improvements, but this storm showed us where improvements are still needed. Seems like we have two speeds lately: drought or flood. I sure hope we're going to level out to some sort of happy medium.

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  6. OH, I'm so sorry. We beg for rain and then it causes such destruction. I'm happy that you're okay, though I know it was scary. And it's a pity about your hard work. I wonder what your cat was thinking?

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  7. The power of rain is simply amazing. So glad your house stayed dry, which is the important thing, but all your hard work on the pathways. Such a shame. I see kitty is wanting to help you!

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  8. So glad to hear that everyone is okay in your neck of the woods.

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I love your comments. Thanks for dropping by.

This is a word verification free blog. It seems to be working out, so far.

~~Linda...