titansphere.com

Yesterday we had one hell of a thunderstorm, and I got stuck in the middle of it. I don’t often get scared in weather, but this had me stressed and worried.

On my way home from work the rain started coming down so hard it sounded like hail. Big, fat drops falling fast. The wind blew it sideways against the car and it was difficult to see even with the windshield wipers going as fast as possible. Lightning chanced about ever 2-3 minutes. I had to turn around two times for fallen trees, and in the air were branches and twigs and raining leaves as well.

By the time I got to NE Salem (I live in far west Salem) the street lights weren’t working and the water was so high that the curbs disappeared. Many of the streets were reduced to one lane either way, and in some spots cars were driving through water about midway up their bumpers. Since I have a partially electric vehicle (a Prius – see my flickr photos), I was considerably more nervous than the average car-owner about partially submersing my underbelly in water. On top of that, there was a 3-car accident in which none of the vehicles were drivable spread across about a block that all the traffic was snaking through. Buckets of water still falling from the sky. I spent 1/2 hour on roughly 1/2 mile of road as rush hour traffic tried to get home as quickly as possible. By the time I got further south to east Salem, the street lights were working and the rain and gathering water had subsided enough not to fear drowning via flash flood, and I made reasonable time back to my house that at the time I was very thankful was at the top of the hill.

Stressed and tired, I walked into my house about 2 hours after the end of my workday.