Thank Goodness It Only Happens Every Fifty Years—Part Two

I dragged my kids back into the mall. They didn’t want to go to any more stores (remember, they're boys), so we sat on extremely uncomfortable benches, and I watched as my children slowly tortured each other. They didn’t really fight. It was sort of whine fest. “Mom, he was staring at me.” “Was not, and besides, he stuck his tongue out at me.” “Did not, besides, he pinched me.” “I did not pinch you. You kicked me.” “I did not.”

I couldn’t stand it anymore. I stood up and said; ”I’m going to try to start the car again. Don’t kill each other while I’m gone.”

I instructed my boys to watch outside one of the mall entrances for me if indeed I did get the car started.


Flooding at the back of our property.

I’m not a praying person, but I did plead out loud with my car. I begged it, I willed it to start. I put the key into the ignition and turned it. Miraculously the sluggish engine started to catch and I revved it so hard that I scared the begeesus out of the woman getting into the car next to me.

I threw it into reverse, and with a squeak of tires I was off to pick up the whiner children. For a moment, the boys, who were chasing each other around the mall directory, didn’t see me. Then together they looked my direction, like a couple of meerkats, and came running. Out through the rain and into my steamy—but running—car.

We were happily on our way towards home. The boys looked over their Lego box plunder, while I sang show tunes and my tires cut a wake through the pouring rain. I think I sang something from Grease.

We were just outside of town and about four miles from our house when I saw it, the Megan’s Law sign. A sign that during a severe storm would say something like “gusty winds ahead, drive carefully” or “heavy rains and dangerous conditions ahead.”
or, “Hwy 17 closed at Hwy 9 to all traffic.”

Huh? But, but, but that’s my highway. That means I can’t get home? That means I’m trapped in the car with my children. Nooooooooooooooo.

I turn on the radio to my trusty AM station that gives traffic reports every 5 minutes. Sure enough, an update tells me that there is no way I can drive home right now. There are two mudslides on the highway. Wait. I have two boys who have been together for 14 days straight. Don’t they know that? I have four-wheel drive. Can’t I just drive over the mudslide? The update also tells me that the back way to our home—that normally takes an extra 45 minutes, but that I would be willing to do—it also closed because of downed trees.

I’m in hell.

Now my boys and I are zigzagging through every single back alley and neighborhood street that I know, avoiding the traffic back-up in town that’s due to two closed highways. We are hoping against hope that they are letting local residents up to their houses.

What was I thinking? Now my boys and I are sitting in traffic with all the other local residents with the same hopes. We have been waiting for 45 minutes.

The number of times my boys have asked, “Why are we sitting here?” 15.
The number of times they have asked: “How much longer?”: 23. The number of times they have asked: “When are we going to get home?” 39.
The number of times I have said: “Please, stop asking that question.” 51.

I finally decide to park the car. There is a parking spot just ahead. No one seems to be interested in parking because they are still holding onto the faint hope that the road will open and they will be at the front of the line to get home. But I spoke to a guy that spoke to this other guy, who talked to one of the Caltrans guys who said that the road wasn’t going to be open for at least three more hours.
So I’m going to take the parking spot two cars ahead of me, park, and then take my kids somewhere fun to pass the time.

The road to the top of our hill.

This is the gate at the top of our hill that leads to an open space reserve. It looks like someone panicked and crashed through it. Notice the gate on the right of the photo is bent. Hmmm.

It takes me twenty more minutes to park my car.
Number of times my kids say, “What are we doing?”: 11
Number of times I say, “Parking the car so we can do something fun.”: 11.

I park the car. My kids and I get out and start back down the street towards town. The first parked car we pass is one of my neighbors. She is sitting in the car. She rolls down her window and I lean in and say “Hi”. She says, “They just opened the road.”
My kids look up at me. The inevitable question: “Shouldn’t we get back in the car now mommy?” I say, a little too harshly, “No, we’re going to have fun!”

We walked down the street to my favorite coffee shop to get some hot chocolate. By the time we got there, we were drenched and cold and the café was closed because it had no power. We walked another block to the next café—no power. We went into le Boulanger and there was power but a huge line and no tables.

I stood in line and told my boys to go forage for a table. The employees behind the counter we obviously not prepared emotionally of physically for the onslaught of patrons. I ordered two hot chocolates, two chocolate chip muffins and a coffee.
Twenty minutes later I received the hot chocolates. My oldest son burned himself right off the bat on his hot chocolate. My youngest refused to drink his because he thought he was going to burn himself. So I got back in line and had them dump out some of the drink and I put some cold milk into the cups. Of course my kids lost interest in them after a while, because of the amount of people in the store it became quite hot and hot liquids didn’t seem to hit the spot anymore.

I called my neighbor who said she was still in her car where I’d left her and that the road was going to be closed for another four hours.

I couldn’t even move my car now because it was stranded on the other side of the traffic line.

Where would we go anyhow? We had no idea who had power and who didn’t. I called a couple of friends but they weren’t home.

This is a 6'x6' sink hole that developed on our property

We walked through downtown and window-shopped. This would have been kind of fun if it wasn’t raining buckets on our heads.
We went by Petroglyph, a place where you paint pottery and they fire it in their kiln for you.

There were people inside, so we pushed the door open and went in.

They had no power, but the manager said we were welcome to stay if we wanted to paint in the dark. We were about an hour away from total darkness outside—so we left.

The power in the stores was starting to come back on, but most of the stores had closed already and their employees were long gone. We decided to head back to the car. We walked by Petroglyph on the way back to the car and there were some lights on. We peeked inside and there was a vacant table under a bank of lights, the only bank of lights that was on. The manager said we were welcome to stay and paint. Redemption.

Three solid hours of redemption. My husband called to tell me that the power had gone on at our house. Then he called back an hour later to say it went back off again. I didn’t really care at that moment. My kids were happy and occupied and I was painting a bowl. I was painting a Valentine’s bowl.

Gardening tip:
Be proactive with your mature trees. Have an arborist out to look at and assess all the mature trees on your property.

It is also a good idea to contact your arborist after an especially bad storm if you are unsure about the structural stability of a certain tree.

Stumble It!

Comments

[Clare]

Thank goodness you are all safe ( and still sane :)...that looks to have been the mother of all storms.

[Yolanda Elizabet]

What a nightmare this turns out to be but hey, great bowl! ;-) There's a silver lining on every cloud. Can't wait to read the next episode!

[Aiyana]

Glad to hear all is well. I had a lot of damage in our storms last year, but your issues look a lot worse. What will happen with the sinkhole?
Aiyana

[chigiy]

Clare,
It was a rather large storm.

Yolanda,
Thanks.

Aiyana,
Ahhh, the sinkhole. Good question, one that we've been wondering ourselves. We will probably have to get a backhoe into that part of the property and level it out, but we can't do it until the ground is more solid.
Another project.

[Carol]

And long after the damage is all cleaned up, you will always have that bowl to remind you of the 50 year storm. You'll be sitting around with grandkids, looking at your bowl, saying "Did I ever tell you the story..." and they will all shout in unison, "YES Grandma, we've heard about that storm!" It was indeed one for the ages.

Carol, May Dreams Gardens

[Muum]

So, are you going to tell us about getting home? This is a great story, and Carol is right, a great one for the (eventual) grandkids!

[Annie in Austin]

It's a wonderful adventure story, Chigiy and you came out of it with a colorful souvenir for the mantle. The line about the boys looking in your direction like meerkats was brilliant.

As to the sinkhole... didn't Butchart Gardens in Victoria start out with a leftover pit and an idea?

Annie at the Transplantable Rose

[Ottawa Gardener]

Woah, and I was complaining about the 5 hundred or so feet of snow we had before the GREAT THAW followed by the IMPENDING COLD. Hmmm... some sort of water feature?

On the serious side, I'm glad that it wasn't worse. We used to have some h*llish gales on the west coast (of Canada) when I was a kid which uprooted trees. I still remember cleaning up the branches and making 10 foot bonfires on our farm.

Great writing!

[kate]

Chigiy,

Those downed trees are something else. What a nasty storm that must have been - and not being able to get home must have been incredibly frustrating. Whining children are no fun! At least you were able to settle down and have some fun. Your heart bowl turned out great!!