Howdy,
Well, the new rain is here.
And wind!
Holy moly, is it WINDY today.
Blustery, you might say.
I don’t know about the tempestuous wind — I’m not a weather man, after all, contrary to my apparent interest and draw to writing about it lately — but the rain seems to be forecasted to stick around for a few days.
And I say new rain, as in we got a short break; and it’s back.
I pray the dams, levees, and river banks hold, and the homes and property in flooding areas hold up. Amen.
We’ve talked about dams — along with the rest of California right now — but I bring up levees because my stepdad Tom had to drive a stretch of road yesterday in Snelling that was flooded due to the Merced River busting over onto Merced Falls Road.
MID is making repairs to a levee along Merced River to help keep the water flowing in the Merced River from spilling onto Merced Falls Road. pic.twitter.com/0uf4Mrfa9o
— Merced County (@MercedCounty) February 17, 2017
Sounds like he only made it through due to the fact that he was driving a truck. The smaller car behind him, he said, had water hitting up on its hood and must have retreated because it didn’t follow around a bend.
When Tom had finished in Snelling he had to circle around through Merced before able to return to Mariposa, blocked from his original route.
Word was a levee, downriver of Lake McClure, wasn’t holding. And this was yesterday, a fairly dry day …
I can only imagine it’s going to continue to be a major challenge for the next week.
I jumped on Twitter to give a quick look for an update, and what’s trending is the hashtag #LARain, where apparently people don’t handle it well.
Careful out there LA. Between two and six inches of rain expected; some at a pace of an inch/hr. #StormWatch pic.twitter.com/LK8OMH86E6
— Atkinson Baker (@AtkinsonBaker1) February 17, 2017
So I love rain. Anywhere but #LA. It's like water falls from the sky and chill, blissed out ppl transform into terrifying stress monsters. pic.twitter.com/aetq0I8HZ0
— Hannah Writes A Lot (@HannahCLangley) February 17, 2017
We’ll pray for them, too.
(Editor’s note: I started this post earlier in the day, when it was the wind that struck me, and it has been blowing hard all day. It’s 8:28 p.m. now, and I don’t think there’s been a calm break the whole day.)
Obviously known to end prayers, the word amen means “so be it.”
And that, in a word, is my prayer for those dams, levees, and river banks … that they’d “so be it,” that’d they hold form in place and as is.
So be it.
—Billy
Reading. Writing. Living.
Word Count: 68,067 / On Pace: 68,200 / Year’s Goal: 200,000
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