Woke up this morning at 2:30 AM to torrential rain. It was hitting our windows sideways and actually making it through a weak seal in one of them. So DH and I spent about half an hour getting that under control then checking the rest of the house for leaks. Then, between the rain on a tin roof sound coming from the downpour hitting the windows and the fact that we got SIX flash flood emergency notifications from 2:30-6 am... hardly any sleep was had.
When we got out of bed at 6 am the drainage basin behind our house was completely full and overflowing into the street behind us. The backyard was completely flooded. There were some leaks but nothing too bad. My phone sent me an alert saying it was going to take 20 minutes longer than normal to get to work. I asked husband to turn on the news because the freeway we take to work routinely floods in downpours.
The news was telling us about lakes that used to be freeways, entire school districts closed down, flash flood warnings and begging us that if we didn't need to go anywhere to stay home. Two of my husband's coworkers on opposite sides of "the valley" tried to get to work and gave up, returning home when they couldn't pass flooded intersections to get in. Both my work and his delayed the start of the day for multiple hours because of the conditions.
Finally, around 10 am it started to let up and the water was able to leave the freeways.
It is officially the wettest day on record for Phoenix. They are calling it a 1,000 year event. The airport received 3.25 inches of rain by 10 am this morning. We're up to past 4 inches at our house. Now, that may not sound like a lot- but this is the desert. Our soil does not absorb water, so everything that falls rushes into the streets or retention basins. And, our infrastructure is not built for this much rain in this little bit of time. To put 4 inches into perspective, we've received 7 inches so far this year including today's rain. So more than half of our annual rain fall came in eight hours today.
The office is downright empty. A lot of people didn't even bother coming in. And it is weird that I just got here and the day is half over. Here's some photos of the rain today.
My pool
Sorry dog, no going this way. This sidewalk is a dam between two retention basins. It's about four of five feet up from the lowest part of the basin
The lake behind our house. This is the one that was flowing into the street. To put size into perspective, this is probably 10 regular swimming pools of water and it filled up completely in four hours.
Also connected to another retention basin. All neighboring houses were thankfully high enough to avoid flooding, but just barely.
I-10 freeway going into Phoenix. Apparently, at 4:30 AM police said the road was safe and sent drivers in. 27 of them got stuck and had to be rescued.
The water at its hight around 8 am this morning
We're supposed to have more rain later on today and this evening. The governor has called a state of emergency. It is NUTS! Thankfully the casualty count is very low. One woman passed away when her car was overcome by fast moving water in Tucson. A house was also destroyed by lightning, but everyone made it out OK. I'm hopeful that the luck holds and that we don't get hit again hard tonight. The retention basins won't be empty by then so it could bend up flooding a lot of people if that happens.