Tropical Storm Hilary Hits The Canyon

 

She brought more rain with her than I've ever seen in my life. It began with a lot of rain on Saturday, before the "real" storm hit on Sunday. 

I got very tired from listening to so much rain. 

The power stayed on for a surprisingly long time, until it finally gave up yesterday. But it came back this morning, so it wasn't bad. 

In the middle of the tropical storm, we got an earthquake alarm. Lots of loud beeps on the phone, then: Duck, Cover and Hold On! 

Something no one in Southern California needed to hear just then. It turns out there was a 5.1 quake in Ojai, a town closer to the coast than to us here.  

My neighbor Joyce's and my road, which leads to the main road in the canyon and goes over a creek has been severely damaged and is impassable. 

The creek flooded, the culvert is damaged and the road also. We are looking into some disaster relief from the county or FEMA or wherever we can find some. It will cost a lot to get this fixed. 

And, of course, it needs to be fixed right away. 

In our broader community, the 60th Anniversary of the Mountain Festival was taking place this weekend, with thousands of people coming from all over to our town. They had to cancel the rodeo on Saturday night, and all events on Sunday. A lot of effort goes into this annual event and I feel bad that the storm happened the weekend of the festival. 

Neighbors in the canyon were evacuated or they were not. I've heard both. 

There was a mud flow on highway 58 near here, with a truck and a car stuck in the mud. 

The official rain amount was 4.58"; Jeanne's count for the part of the canyon where she lives was 7" and that was before the rain stopped. 

So we got a really ginormous amount of rain. 

Our normal rain amount for August is 0.08", how many drops of rain would that be, I couldn't help but wonder. Not very many...

The paper said that the water infrastructure worked well, the power outages, including ours, were taken care of promptly, and everything worked well. 

And I'm glad I bought food and water before this event. I didn't really believe I would be stuck here, but I've always felt that it never hurts to be prepared. 

Faith is also happy to have had ALL her canned dog food arrive in time at the post office. Being stuck here without good dog food, she said, is not an option.