Wednesday, July 16, 2014

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO GET A LITTLE ATTENTION AROUND HERE?

Yesterday was just another warm July afternoon here in Eastern Idaho; at least until the puffy little clouds morphed into a HUGE thunderhead over our fair city.  Then all the fountains of the great deep broke up and the windows of heaven were opened. Forty days and nights of rain fell in the span of forty minutes over and area not more than a few square miles--right over town, and especially over the campus of BYU-Idaho.

An unbelievable amount of water gushed through gutters, drains, catch basins, sidewalks and then overflowed into streets, parking lots and basements.

Landscaping washed out.

Rain shot out of gutters like water from a fire hose.

Campus became a whitewater adventure for the students.

Everybody had a camera so plenty of video is available to share from YouTube.

I was on the hill above town when it all came down along with quarter-size hail.  What the heck!!!!?  By the time I could go home there was almost no getting across town because the streets were blocked by emergency vehicles and caution cones.

When I finally made it through the obstacle course expecting the worst--

DH had taken photos of our street where the water came up above the gutters but hadn't done damage to our home.  A lot of students in ground floor housing weren't so fortunate.  

Some apartments were filled to the windows and others, like the ground floor where our granddaughter and her husband lived (fortunately for them they lived on the second floor), got enough muddy water to soak the carpets.  The parking lot where their car was parked filled so deep the water went over the front seat.

Yes, the deluge made the ABC Morning News.  But only for a moment before they went on to a list of floods and disasters in other parts of the world.  Not even thirty seconds of fame.  At least they didn't call us Iowa or Ohio.