Not With A Whimper

The region I live in, the northern Central Valley of California, has been experiencing some serious precipitation. Many communities along the Sacramento River are experiencing flood warnings and record river levels. Since my house got flooded back in 1998, I am extra cautious (translation: paranoid) about being prepared. So after over 2" of rain came down during the day yesterday, I spent all last night (and I mean all; I finally got maybe two hours sleep at 5:00 AM) securing the valuables, getting guitars into their cases and then getting the cases on top of the second refrigerator in the garage; moving all the books and CDs off the lower shelves; etc. Also walking down to the nearby creek to check the levels every few hours. Fun stuff. But necessary, as today was supposed to be another 2" day, and that combined with the runoff from the hills would be sure to send the creek through my (and several other families') living room tonight if I wasn't ready.

At 8:30 AM this morning, I head down to the local public works yard to fill up some sandbags. I get a couple dozen of them in the truck before it starts hailing. Thinking "oh shit, here we go" I get home, and after another half hour of sideways rain not only does it suddenly stop, but the sun comes out. Fucking bizarre. And it stays nice and sunny all day, instead of the additional rain that would have caught me short-handed.

Although, a power pole that had snapped in half and hung over the nearby road, suspended over the lane by the wires, knocked out my electrical power all afternoon. I got it back just in time to watch the Raiders' last gasp effort to upset the Giants, fizzle out on a goal-line choke late in the 4th quarter (but that's for another post).

Then watching the news an hour ago, I see that the rain that we were supposed to get and didn't still managed to hit several counties to the south and west of here, leaving a lot of folks waist deep in brown water. Not another Katrina, but not a real pleasant way to bring in the new year.

We're not exactly in the clear where I'm at either; the rainy season is really just getting underway, another storm is scheduled to hit tomorrow, and more runoff from the hills will keep the creek dangerously high for a while. But the clear day today has bought me enough time to get enough sandbags to secure the perimeter over the rest of the long weekend. And after seeing what happened to the Russian River communities today and yesterday, I can't help but feel a bit sheepish at bitching about having no power all afternoon (though that does indeed suck).

Is there a larger point to all this? Not really. Just a fairly wild and unpredictable way to finish off a year that was also largely wild and unpredictable. And we broke the coveted 40,000 hit mark here at the Hammer, which is nice. So thanks for the continued readership, stay safe, take care of yourselves and each other, and get ready to take on 2006.