On Sunday evening, Curtis and I walked Oreo and it looked the like clouds were starting to build and thought that we may get more rain after all. As the evening went on we were getting dust storm warnings on our phone, but nothing had transpired in rain by the time we went to bed.
About 2:30 a.m. Curtis and I were both woken up with crashing thunder and lightening. It was the kind that you see the flicker of lightening and immediately hear the booming thunder. I love a good thunder storm, but not when it is right on top of you. I just hoped and prayed it wouldn't hit our house. At the same time I was also loving the sound of the rain coming down. We were finally getting our storm. The thunder moved on and we went back to sleep, but I kept waking up through out the night when I was getting flash flood warnings on my phone and I would still hear rain coming down. Usually when it rains here in the desert, a storm rolls in with a bunch of dust, if we are lucky it may rain for about 20 min, then clear up. The entire "storm" is in less than an hour. I did think it was odd that I kept hearing pretty constant rain for all that time. My phone warning was telling me until 10:30 a.m. That was another surprise, when we actually do get the flood warnings, they never seem to transpire, and when they do it is usually no where near us, and they are usually for about an hour in advance, not four more hours.
With my past flood experience in Hawaii and Florida, I knew that constant rain like that for hours usually causes a flood. Not here in Arizona, we don't flood, we barley get rain. I got up and looked in our back yard and there was definitely water starting to puddle up in our yard. WOW this is exciting for us. We turned on the news and HOLY COW, Phoenix was flooding, freeways were shut down schools were cancelled. I couldn't believe it. Floods in Hawaii and Florida and inevitable but Arizona where the annual rain fall is under 8" how could that be? The kids schools were not mentioned as being closed so off we went. I took Dax to school, but was amazed at all the water in the streets. Many streets were closed off, driving was slow and the water was still coming down. When I got home I told Curtis not to go to work. It was crazy out there, and the news was telling people only drive today if you absolutely have to. Since half the staff couldn't even get in because of closed roads, he reluctantly stayed home.
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| I-10 and 43 Ave exit- Not something you ever see in Phoenix |
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| Some kids from our neighborhood enjoying the flood in the Arden Park green belt |
I walked Derek and Trey across the street to Hancock and Trey loved that he could use an umbrella, and the kids wore their jackets with hoods, a novelty here in Phoenix. Although the temp was still in the '90's.
By the time I had come home Curtis said that Dax was texting saying his bus from Seminary to take him to Erie was late and by this time they were announcing that school was optional.
I headed out to pick Dax up with the intention of just bringing home. The normal 10 minute drive took nearly 40 minutes. It wasn't that bad when I dropped him off earlier, but an hour later it was awful. I was about 100 yards from where I was to pick up Dax and he texted me that the bus finally came so he went to school. UGHH! I wished he didn't get on that bus. I headed on to my appt. Then I soon got another text saying not many people were at school, and not much was going on so he wanted to go home. I called him and told him I coulnd't leave for 30 min. Then I would pick him up. Meanwhile the rain is still coming down.
When my appointment ended at 10:00 I headed out to get Dax, but Alma School was closed, I had to head up Dobson. Traffic was slow and the roads had water everywhere, Dobson didn't seem much better than what I saw on Alma School. There was a few times I worried that I wouldn't make it through without water coming in. I could hear the water sloshing around under me. Finally I make it to school about 10:45 and it was a steady stream of parents picking up their kids. The news was saying the storm would lighten up, but we could get rain through Tuesday.
I signed Dax out and once again it was a slow drive home. We get into our neighborhood and I took the long way to our house because I wanted to show Dax our "lake" down the street from us. As I'm coming back down our street there are all kinds of Fire Trucks and police cars. I could see a bit of smoke rising from one of the houses near ours. The policeman stopped me and told me the road was blocked off because of a chemical fire, they didn't want people around until they got it cleared up. WHAT??? This is a crazy day. He told us to turn around and leave for about 30 minutes. It truly was a day out of the ordinary. It was nearly 11:00 a.m. and I have not eaten breakfast yet, which is also highly unusual. I had a few nibbles of grapes and the crust from Trey's sandwich, but I did not have my normal big breakfast and I was starving. So Dax and I headed to a little Mexican place for breakfast burritos. When we pulled into the parking lot, there was standing water everywhere. It was hard to find a place to park without getting our feet totally submerged as we walked inside. Dax and I had a good time eating out Breakfast burritos and Dax was actually surprised how good they were considering they had eggs inside. Dax taught me how to place chess and we played a short game on his phone as we waited for the food. We had a good time, and talked about what an unusual day it had turned out to be. A flood, no school, and a chemical fire 3 doors down all in one morning.
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| Our "lake" at the end of our street, Sparrow Pl. |
We also feel 100% blessed,many of our neighbors had flooded basements, and leaks to worry about. We had nothing. We just got to enjoy all the water. At final count, Chandler pretty much got the worst of the entire Valley which was 5.5" almost an entire year of annual rain fall in one morning. Also from past flood experience, here come the mosquito s.
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