An Atmospheric River

It started in the middle of the night while we slept. I woke at 4am to the sound of rain pounding on the roof, branches of a lime tree banging against the outside bedroom wall and the wind coming in gusts. I got up and peered out of windows blurred by water streaming off the roof. The motion sensor light above the garage had been activated by the wind and the light shone through a waterfall from a failed gutter. Everything looks dire at that hour so I went back to bed, but not really ever back to sleep. Interestingly, I was reading the section of Braiding Sweetgrass where she is describing the sound of the rain in the rainforest in Oregon.

I close my eyes and listen to the voices of the rain....Every drip it seems is changed by its relationship with life....And we think of it simply as rain. Maybe there is no such thing as rain; there are only raindrops, each with its own story.
-Robin Wall Kimmerer

Believe me, this was RAIN falling in torrents Periodically blown sideways by gusts of wind up to 50mph. We did not have the luxury of observing each drop. We were too busy sweeping water out of the garage where the water was being blown under the door and pooling under the bathtub, toilets and assorted hardware. We decided they were, after all for the bathroom so we left them standing in their puddles, but we put blocks of wood under the pieces of wood and the sliding doors destined for the office closet if they don't warp.

After that, there was very little we could do but turn off the alarming warning sound of constant emergency alerts (last heard when we were being told to evacuate from the Glass fire raging down the hill along Santa Rosa Creek across the street) and watch the rain pour down. We feel quite safe where are, but our neighbor Cindy lives right on the creek, which was but a trickle three days ago, and she has been watching the waters rise behind a dam of piled up fire debris. I've posted the picture she sent. The fire department came and checked it out but said there was nothing they could do, streets and some houses all over town have flooded.

Our friends on Sonoma Mountain are without power. Ours has held, perhaps because most of the power lines here were replaced after the Glass fire and many of the burned trees have been cut down before they could fall on power lines. We are still worried about a couple of big oaks which we have been watching since before the fire because they are drought stressed, but so far they are still standing. The burnt leaves I am so tired of looking at are still hanging on to their limbs like grim death, however.

It is still raining steadily after more than 24 hours, but the winds have died down. We have been praying for rain but I guess you have to be careful what you ask for...we didn't want it  all at once. At least this should bring the fire season to an end.The extra is the water in our drainage culvert, usually completely dry. If the rain has let up tomorrow we'll go out and investigate....