There's gonna be a floody, floody, floody

Sunday we found out that our next guest would not be arriving as his flight has been diverted to Hermosillo because the Loreto airport was swamped by Tropical Depression Julio. Of course Sunday is the staff’s day off, but we had been grazing on leftover chile rellenos all day. We had noticed many clouds that morning and the air had become remarkably more humid, but we just didn’t give it much thought. Now was our first inkling of impending trial by water.

The internet still isn’t working at our house so we got Hermana and Junior Birdman fired up to fed us some weather info from the internet which described sustained winds from 50 to 85 mph with the storm moving north at 12 mph. The evening was pleasantly cooler, and we spend a good part of it having cocktails and watching the guys with sailboats out in the breakwater tying their boats down. After dinner of yet more chile rellenos we went to bed. I had a hard time getting to sleep wondering what we were in for. At midnight the first serious rain started to fall. About 3 AM I went to see what was happening around the house and that’s when I found the laundry room inundated and water pouring in the back door. The architect had poured the slab level with the door and it was slanting in toward the house. I got Esperando out of bed and we started mopping. Soon Monday morning arrived, but not any household help! They were all in town mopping out their houses. As the wind shifted so did our mopping. We mopped continuously all day in the kitchen, in the living room, the laundry room --and finally our bedroom when the wind truly came up and threw sheets of water under the French doors. The paint on the walls started to bubble with water blisters which grew to 5 or more inches before bursting and spewing water down the walls in the hall, our bedroom and the living room.

It rained like it had in Panama, a tropical deluge of warm heavy rain. The army came in downtown to protect people from crossing the streets. The main east-west thoroughfare here is called El Arroyo and when it rains here that’s where the water runs. Yesterday it had about a foot of running water in it. Ambulances and fire trucks raced around with sirens blaring and car alarms went off. We probably had 6-8 inches that fell at our house in about 24 hours, but were protected from most of the wind until the last 3-4 hours. At about 6 pm, just in time for dinner, the wind stopped, the waves calmed and the rain stopped falling actually rather abruptly. Finally a rest for the weary moppers.