Lotsa Rain and Mud
As the auto salesperson remarked: “not sure how the addicts are able to have such regular bowel movements”. You do not want to be wading in that water in San Franshithole, but the good news is that about 2000 tons of human turds hit the bay on Dec 31, freshening up the public latrines for more deposits. Those poor fish. And the weather is too cold for swimming anyway. Hooray, the streets are clean! For a few days.
The soil here is absolutely saturated; we got about a foot of rain at my place in 36 hours on Dec 31. An earthquake now would make a serious mess and kill people in their homes, somewhere. Closest thing we can manage to a hurricane out here.
Roads with any kind of small hill nearby have caving mud piles that crews have yet to clean. I saw more wrecks on the freeway than I have ever seen in my life as we drove to buy a car for my daughter—had to do the deal that day (yes, you can get a new car far below MSRP and below prices for used ones of same model and 1-2 years older with 10K miles, go figure).
The wrecks we saw were obviously all 100% avoidable single car things. NOT accidents, but negligence eg fools going 65-70 on a downhill, running into pooled water, spinning out and rolling their vehicles. We saw 6 or 7 major wrecks in 30 miles in the space of 35 minutes. All you had to do was to reduce speed to 50 mph, pay attention eyes ahead and get home safe. We did, in both cars. But plenty of people cannot manage that simple requirement to not die. And they vote. Makes one wonder.
More rain coming
UPDATE Jan 4, 15:20: so far a mild rain nothing out of the ordinary, hardly worth mentioning. Maybe things will pick up but so far it’s a yawner. Other than one single-car spin-out I saw, just like a few days ago—100% preventable.
UPDATE Jan 4, 17:15: greatly intensified rain and violent gusts, and we lost power briefly. The next 4 or 5 hours should be interesting, bummer that I can’t see the spectacle in the dark.
The news out here is abuzz with an incoming “category 5” rainstorm arriving tomorrow with more rain and very high winds expected (40 to 60 mph). Maybe less rain, but much stronger winds. We can sure use the rain and snow to fill reservoirs, but I’d bet that insurers are not thrilled. One big risk is trees coming down with the wind, as their roots have nothing but sloppy soil to hang onto.
Amazingly we have not lost power through all this, which is some kind of post-XMAS miracle. But tomorrow all bets are off.
Below, pictures from Dec 31. The auto showroom was an inch deep in water not long after this shot was taken. The roof was leaking into virtually every office and I watched a ceiling tile burst with many gallons... the showroom across the street flooded also. We got lucky since Finance only had one small leak.
Auto showroom about to be flooded
Below, storm drain at my house some genius designed 57 years ago, with a right angle turn at the bottom of the grade. What could go wrong? This is about as much water as I’ve seen in the past 32 years (one other similar year).
Overflowing Storm Sewer
“Rats”, says Tigger.
Tigger Wants to Hunt
My yard has good drainage, but this was before the really heavy downpour came. This low spot all drained out within 24 hours, thanks to a french drain in the middle of this pool.
iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 4.0 mm f/4 @ 4mm ENV: altitude 474 ft / 144 m
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iPhone 11 Pro + iPhone 11 Pro 4.2 mm f/1.8 @ 26mm equiv (4.2mm) ENV: altitude 503 ft / 153 m
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Sony A7R V + Voigtlander FE Macro APO-Lanthar 65mm f/2 Aspherical
ENV: Alpine Creek, altitude 650 ft / 198 m, 61°F / 16°C
RAW: Camera PT, +10 Whites, +10 Clarity
mudslide did not exist 12 hours prior
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