Friends, I am sorry, but I do not have a vlog for you. Things got a bit crazy and I didn't have time to cut the rest of the video together.
What I mean by "things got a bit crazy" is that the notorious Santa Ana winds came whirlwinding through town Wednesday night. For SoCal, usually when these winds visit, they bring autumn heat waves or cause the infamous SoCal fires, but this time, they decided to do what wind does best, and that's blow shizz down. And huff and puff and blow shizz down they did!
They blew down dry autumnal leaves and potted plants, trashcans and Christmas lawn decorations.
They blew down branches and small trees and LARGE trees and snapped electrical poles clean in two!
They huffed and puffed and blew down a gas station!
No, seriously. Photographic proof at the LA Times blog - High winds: Pasadena, Sierra Madre declare states of emergency.
Needless to say, the San Gabriel Valley got hit pretty hard. School was canceled Thursday and today. My local cities declared States of Emergencies and Disaster Areas. 75% of my city doesn't have electricity or running water as I type this Thursday night.
In fact, Alz is one of those 75%. She says, by the way, that writing by the flickering light of ONE candle is pretty damn hard. My street by some sweet, dumb luck is part of the 25% that DOES have power (how this blog is possible).
Miraculously, in my city, no one has been reported as hurt by all these number of things falling. So, SILVER LINING!
Driving home from work Thursday was surreal. As I got into my city where most of the lights were out, it was like driving through a post-apocalyptic and/or dystopian landscape. Broken signage, toppled trees, dark, dark houses and streets. Debris everywhere. Only the headlights of my car and the few others on the road lit the way.
There's a set of train tracks on a small hill I have to cross to get home, and that looked really creepy. As cars headed in my opposite direction approached, I could see their headlights crest the hill, backlighting the tracks and the railroad signals. I half expected zombies to shamble over the top.
I've got some more sympathy for our characters now, I'll tell you that.
SO: vlogs next week! NaNo update too!
What are your freak natural disaster experiences OR have you ever been in a situation that eerily mirrored that of your characters? (The universe is definitely telling me to get back to work on my Camp NaNo novel from this summer.)
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12 comments:
I'm glad to hear that everyone is safe. But are you sure it was the Santa Anas and not the venti from The Lost Hero?
We had tornadoes rip through this past spring, and we were without power for about a week. We ended up having to buy a generator because our basement began flooding since the sump pump wasn't working--the up side of that is I can always power up my computer and write.
Oh Wow! Glad no one got hurt from all that.
I can say that I know first hand the danger of wildfire caused by those winds. I'd just moved to San Diego - not even a good two months - when the Rice wildfires kicked up and forced us a bit further north for a moment to make sure we weren't in the line of fire, literally. I'm not there any more, but the memory is still vivid.
Mother Nature can be both beautuful and cruel.
Yikes, that's crazy. The only thing southern Ontario gets is a lot of snow, and sometimes tornadoes in the more rural areas. ._.
So the cool part is that our power went out a few hours after NaNo finished, the sucky part was packing the next day in candlelight.
Our fridge smelled so bad but we didn't have time to throw the food away before we left. Still no idea if our power is back yet!
Oh I hate it when it's crazy windy like that. We're always losing power because of high winds.
Stay safe this weekend and make sure Alz is okay!
Yikes! That all sounds horrible. I hope you guys are okay and that it's all over for a while.
I'm glad to hear no one's been hurt!
There was flooding this summer/fall. We didn't get a whole lot of water in the basement or anything, but it hit records in the nearest city.
We had this freak wind that hit just before a thunderstorm a few years ago. We lost power for 5 days and saw huge trees sitting on houses. It was unreal.
A slong as you and your family is safe....oh my....
That's so terrifying. I'm glad to hear that everybody -- especially you and Alz -- is safe.
It sounds so much like the hurricanes we'd have here, except without the accompanying flooding.
What an adorable blog....love your header.
NEW FOLLOWER
Elizabeth
http://silversolara.blogspot.com
I know this is crazy, but I used to love when the Santa Ana's would blow into town. But I had no idea they were this bad down by you guys. I've never heard of school being cancelled because of the wind! Though I guess if you have no electric it's hard to go to school. Hope things are better this week :)
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