And The Rains Came Down

Now I live on the rainy side of Hawaii Island outside of Hilo.  We get rain.  But there is rain and there is rain.  Tuesday night, we got over five inches.  Our rain gauge only goes to five inches.  And a section of the road that leads to our house washed out.  Our road is gravel on top of lava and it comes down a rather steep hill.  If the rain is heavy enough, the water rushing down the hill takes out the surface gravel leaving gullies a foot deep and a foot wide.  But that was Tuesday night.  

Friday night it started to rain again, and it rained, and it rained, and it rained.  This is Sunday morning and it is still raining.  I'm not talking nice soft Pacific Northwest rain.  I'm talking tropical downpours at about an inch an hour. 

 

Our buildings sit pretty high and Glenn has done a good job of making a path for the water, but yesterday most of the area other than where the house sits was under water at some level or another.  The section between us and the street was a small river.  As you can see from the picture above and this one, that river was flowing at a rate that it was creating water falls.  It was about 18 inches deep and varied from six feet wide to a space that was probably twenty to thirty feet wide.  

We have two lots and buildings on both lots.  The area between them is grassy with banana plants on palm trees on it.  This is what it looked like yesterday.  We not only had river front property, we also had lake front property.

Well, it's a rainy Sunday and looks like it will stay that way.  I can't get my car out on the road and the Mayor is asking everyone to stay home.  I think it is a good day to pull out the spinning wheel or some other fiber tool and find a nice glass of wine.

Want to join me?