What an adventure driving home can be!
Last night I went to pick up my daughter from the movie theater in Pitillal at about 7:00. It was sprinkling a bit as I left, but it didn’t seem ominous. Let me just say right here, if you live somewhere that it is possible to be rained out, think twice before going to the movies during rainy season. Since we were right there, we decided to pick up a few things at the grocery store, and midway into that we started to hear the absolute pounding on the roof of the store, some 30 feet above us.
Anyone who lives here knows that Francisco Villa turns into a river when it rains. So I wanted to avoid that as much as possible. We had to take the plunge to exit the shopping center, and then we got off right away onto the road that goes alongside Pitillal Walmart, and then onto Los Torres. Normally we take Pavo Real home, but anyone who knows that road knows that it floods, too. And if I went that way I would have to go up one really steep spot that I might not be able to do in such rain. So we passed it up thinking it might be better to go up Vienna. There was some road construction and I was forced to get back on the dreaded Francisco Villa, passing some vehicles that were much taller than mine that were just sitting there waiting for the waters to recede. I can’t even believe it myself that I made it through that intersection, but I couldn’t just sit there, as I had three bouncing children in the car and my A/C doesn’t work good enough to combat the steam generation.
I was relieved to get onto Vienna Street, but not for long. I had not taken this way in a torrential downpour before, and it was only a hopeful guess that it might be less floody than Pavo Real. At least on Pavo Real there are not places where you have to fight a major cross current. Well, it IS as floody as Pavo Real, and it is amazing we made it home, as we had to cross three places on Vienna where water was gushing across in front of us with great force. You’ve probably seen a video where someone tries to drive through a cross current and gets swept away. Please note: Don’t Go Up Vienna in a Downpour!!
So after driving through unbelievable amounts of water flowing down the roadway, and suffering not knowing whether we would make it since my car was screeching with belt-slipping noises and having moments of loss of power, we finally got back into our neighborhood. Just as we were about to turn onto our street, a bolt of lightning came from behind us and struck just 3 blocks in front of us. Now, considering the perspective that horizontal lightning can travel as far as hundreds of miles, and that we were traveling parallel to it only about 40 feet difference in elevation, 3 blocks might as well have been 3 inches. It was so close the thunder was instant, and the lightning had traveled parallel with us, so you could hear the crack roll past us, like a supersonic jet passing right next to us. All the nearby LED lights started going crazy, and then the power went out.
We turned up our road and found an overflowing ditch sending a river of water across the road that was too muddy to see through, and we had to charge through that hoping it hadn’t eroded too deeply, but at least at this point it would be a short walk home. Then we found the drainage ditch at the end of our driveway was heavily overflowing, having displaced some pretty big rocks and there was even a cement block that rolled down from somewhere lying in the middle. So I wasn’t about to drive through that not knowing how deep it might be or what rocks we might bottom out on. We had to park on the road, and the kids who were all dressed up for a Friday night had to take off their shoes and stockings and wade through a pretty quick current to get back to our dark, silent house. Once we dried off and the rain subsided, I checked our weather station rain gauge, and it registered 5.3 inches!!
Here’s a video floating around Facebook about someone else’s adventure driving home. We do not know the origin of the video, but whoever you are, thanks for sharing!!