Our storm

Here’s a video I took Monday evening while standing with a group of about 15 other shoppers in the exit of the local Albertsons. I had just purchased a cake for my coworker’s birthday the next day.

In New Mexico it can rain hard, but is usually over in about 10 minutes. So we are accustomed to just staying put and waiting it out. But this time it showed no sign of slowing down, and the water was rising. And the hail was getting bigger.

Eventually I put the cake on my head and dashed out there. For a moment I couldn’t remember where my car was. And it was hard to see anything. This is not the time to forget where you parked! I imagined everyone standing at the door of the grocery store, watching me dash around in circles in the downpour with a cake on my head. Too bad I don’t have a video of that!

Then came the crazy drive home. I only live a few blocks from the Albertsons, but a big arroyo is between me and the store. All the water from our side of town was rushing through the streets toward that arroyo. My house is only yards from the arroyo – the houses across the street from me are along the arroyo. There was so much water in the air and on the road that I couldn’t even see how deep the water was. I was just stupid-lucky to get home with my car intact.

We had 3.5 inches of rain in 2 hours, which is considered a 1000 year flood. It’s also 1/4 of our average total rainfall for a whole year.

Here’s photos of the water rising in my backyard.

There’s a retention pond a few feet from my house. This photo is taken from my dining room window and it was getting dark, so it’s not a very good photo. The pond was completely full of water and overflowing into my front yard.

In addition to all the water, the storm was extremely loud. I have several skylights and the hail just hammered them. Hail and debris was being thrown against the house.

And then the lightening started.

The lightning worsened until it was continual, with cracks of thunder overlapping each other, making it impossible to even know which thunderclap was from which lightning strike. That’s why I didn’t go take a video of the arroyo. I figured someone else would do it, and sure enough, they did.

This is the arroyo that is less than one block from me. I jog there every week and I’ve never seen any water in it since I moved in last December. (John found this video on youtube. I didn’t take this one!)

Here’s the same arroyo, dry the next morning when I went out to go jogging.

Here’s my house the next morning, splattered with bits of leaves. The wind, rain, and hail shredded the vegetation.

I only ended up with a little bit of water in my master bedroom closet. Some of my coworkers had flooding across their entire first floor of their house. So I was lucky given how close I am to the arroyo.

High and mostly dry:

I’m also one block down from the rodeo grounds. Mud and big clots of horse manure washed into my neighborhood streets.

Luckily my house is a few feet higher than the street, and I didn’t get any horse shit in my yard or in my house! 😛