Flashback Flashflood

 

It is amazing how quickly it starts raining here. It's dry and slightly overcast one minute and the next, the skies literally open up and drench everything. It's almost like a faucet gets turned on and instantly, it's a monsoon. Florida rains seem to come on more slowly, with less dramatic onset, but I could just be sensitive.

More amazing is how much water can accumulate in a short period of time. I'm about half way down the volcano and the water that comes down the front of the house is truly amazing. It's God's perfect street cleaning system too; Everything up road, ends up down road.  I've seen what it does all the way down the mountain at the shore too. Water can move some sand, quickly. 

Whenever I see and think of moving water, I think of my experience in Maui with the only time I was caught in a flash flood. There are few things more horrific than facing a wall of water from massive rains, running down the side of a mountain.

I was living on a little farm on the north shore of Maui in a small house at the edge of a drainage stream, just down hill from a blacktop road.  Over the stream was a curved aqueduct bridge. I could walk under the bridge from the property. The stream moved small amounts of rainwater from the top of Haleakala Volcano to the sea during the time I was living there. One night it rained, and rained hard. I never gave it much though as I was in a rain forest, but this was different.  It just didn't stop.

Gradually I watched the stream rise to right beside my rental house, and then it happened. The water volume became so big that it exceeded the aqueduct, and moved over the top of the bridge, down the road, and into my steep driveway which led to the carport open garage. I heard the water hitting the back bumper of my Toyota 4-Runner and the underside of the house.

For a few moments, I didn't know what to do, but I knew I had to get out of the house. It was quite possible that the water could lift the house off the cement block stilts and sweep it down stream. I wasn't going to be in the house when that happened. I pulled on my knee high rubber boots (mandatory rain forest garb), grabbed my wallet, my dog (Doberman puppy), the keys and hit the electric breakers off as I bolted thru the door to the truck. The water was up to mid door at that point, and I managed to climb into the truck thru an open window. I threw the puppy into the passenger front seat, and prayed as I started the engine, threw it into reverse 4 WD, and gunned the gas to back out of the carport, up the drive and on to the road's pavement. I made it out of the gully. Whew! I sat for a moments contemplating what I left behind and if I'd see it again. The water continued to rise.

I ended up at a friends house for the night and returned to the house the next day. The yard was spotless clean from the washout it received. The grass was almost combed down in the direction of the water flow. It actually looked nice. No damage beyond my memory, but a night of water I won't ever forget. Until the day he died, I doubt my Doberman ever forgot either.

It is supposed to continue to rain all day on Sunday too.