I have lived in this high desert community for thirty years, and I never expected to get a tropical storm warning. Hurricane Hilary headed our way? How bad will it be? Weather Underground and the National Weather Service vacillate on the amount of rain we can expect, but it averages out to around four inches, while the local meteorologist says some locations could get up to ten. This might not sound like much, but to put things in perspective, Tehachapi averages about 11.08 inches of precipitation per year so four inches is more than a third of our annual total, and ten inches would be ridiculous, especially since it’s all supposed to fall in one day.
Before my husband, Bob, and I drive into town, I move my concrete squirrel rain gauge out into the open where I can clearly see the markings on the test tube from the kitchen window. In town, both the Home Depot and the Save Mart are busy, filled with patrons that are either stocking up on emergency supplies or in denial. Clouds billow up over the mountains and the valley. A tropical breeze that would rustle palm fronds, if we had any palm trees, floats through town.
Today is the first day of the big Mountain Festival weekend, its diamond anniversary, consisting of a parade, a rodeo, a car show, a carnival, music, dancing, and a park full of craft and food booths among other things. Errands done, Bob and I head over to the Mountain Festival’s gem and mineral show where one of our neighbors is working. His house is up against a clay hillside, and he’s worried about the runoff and a mudslide. I invite his family to shelter at our place. We’re surrounded by washes on three sides, but there isn’t a hill that might collapse into our yard or worse on top of our house. He has a second building on the property, a cottage, that’s out of harms way. He’ll go there if necessary.
I take a quick spin on the gem and mineral wheel of fortune and win an amethyst crystal, the February birthstone. February includes two zodiac signs—Aquarius, the water bearer, and Pisces, the fish. Maybe winning a stone associated with water is a bad sign. The breeze is picking up, the clouds tower. It’s not looking good for the Mountain Festival.
“This is probably just another one of those storm warnings that will amount to nothing,” Bob says, as we drive past the cement plant toward our home in Sand Canyon. Just as the words pop out of his mouth, the first raindrops plop onto our dusty windshield. By the time we get home, the sky rumbles like a busy bowling alley. Rain and hail take turns bouncing off the ground. Decomposed granite splashes up and covers the feet of the little cement squirrel. The test tube it holds in its paws begins to fill with water as the tall grey clouds overhead continue to pour and roar pretty much nonstop for several hours.
There’s a welcome lull in the storm overnight, but in the morning the rain starts up again. Bob goes outside to check the drainage pipe that crosses under the road to make sure it’s still clear of debris. Then the rain kicks up several notches, pouring down in sheets and torrents. The giant water bearer up in the sky has dumped his whole bucket. In the flat sections of our property, puddles form and rivulets of water stream down the inclines. It’s a swamp out there. A torrent of water rushes along the fence at the back of our property, and we hear the roar of Cache Creek to the south and east. By now the pipe under the road may be clogged, but there is no going outside to check it in this downpour.
I’m not accustomed to this much rain, or any rain at all in August, and it’s making me nervous. From my living room window, I’m heartened to see a big emergency vehicle lumber up Sand Canyon Road and through the wash. At least the fire department is able to get through, and they’re checking on us which allays my anxiety a bit. Then Bob and I get a series of loud and confusing text message warnings. It looks like we’re advised to shelter in place. Good, because we don’t have a giant truck, and we couldn’t get out if we tried.
A lively group of hummingbirds is taking refuge at my feeder under the eaves. They whizz about, chasing one another, as if there is not a deluge of rain pouring down a few inches away. I look at the rain gauge. Almost full. It only measures up to five inches of liquid, so I watch and wait, and when the water reaches the number five, I dash outside, dump it out, and start again.
After that, the rain pounds down harder. An inch has fallen in just half an hour, when we hear a loud blare coming from our phones and see a text message. “Earthquake detected!” It instructs us to duck, cover, and hold. Bob and I just sit there, eating the homemade soup, I’d prepared, ignoring the warning. We both agree that an earthquake is one thing too many. If the house falls on us, so be it.
In the evening, I enter the virtual world and play a round of miniature golf with my sister up in the Bay Area. Just as I remove the VR headset, darkness descends. We’ve lost power. Maybe because I left a sunny virtual world seconds before, the descent into darkness, seems darker, and the roar of the streams louder. I pull on my boots, grab flashlights and insist that we go outside to see if the creek is overflowing its banks and headed for our house. Our German Shepherd comes with us. She seems to be enjoying the storm, unlike her humans.
We wade through a stream flowing along our road. It’s washing away the expensive decomposed granite that makes our dirt road passable. We make our way closer to Cache Creek and flash our lights all around. Much to my relief, the roaring torrent doesn’t appear to be coming toward us. Satisfied, but soaked, we go home and settle in for the night, just as the rain tapers off.
The next morning, under sunny skies, we survey the damage on foot. Squirrel is holding another four inches of water in his test tube for a grand total of nearly nine inches. We trudge over to Sand Canyon Road where we encounter a neighbor who informs us that the hillside at the curves collapsed onto the only paved road out of the canyon. No surprise there. That hillside is steep, almost a cliff, and there was a lot of rain. The drainage pipe that runs under our own road is completely clogged. The stream flows across the road now instead of under it, creating a mini-waterfall, and a large section is badly damaged. Bob and I dig out the debris until the water is sucked into the pipe once again.
A neighbor with four-wheel drive stops by and agrees to navigate the neighborhood with his wife and take pictures of the damage. And another neighbor with a bulldozer pushes some dirt over the exposed pipe, a temporary fix. Thank you both! We’re hoping for a source of funds because there is zero money to fix the roads.
The Pine Canyon area lost their culvert and had no way of getting out or in over the raging stream. Water and mud flowed into the house of our neighbor next to the clay hill, but he created a path for the flow, in through the back of the house and out through the front, so the damage wasn’t too bad. A bit of water ran into our garage, but other than that our buildings are dry. Road crews have been out on the county road clearing away the mud, and the fire department has been driving the neighborhood assessing the damage. I am grateful for their help. That was one scary storm, and I am not looking forward to the next one.
The plants seem thrilled though. My shriveled-up cacti have grown fat again, a pretty patch of yellow wildflowers has bloomed just outside my living room window, and my back acre is green, as if I’d planted a lawn. As for the animals, the red ants are busy repairing their tunnels, leaving tiny brown craters all over our property, and the hummers are zooming about in the sunlight like beautiful jewels. I am happy for the plants and the surviving animals who now have plenty of water, but I dearly hope that hurricanes in the high desert are not the new normal—if there is ever any kind of normal again.
Sand Canyon Almanac 