Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Tremendous storm ever

Yesterday, around 5pm, when I left office to pick up Lucas at school, I had a surprise (my office is like a bunker, so I could listen to the rain but could not measure its intensity): the streets were all under water! A tremendous, huge, awesome, scaring storm was falling from the skies with such violence it was impossible to cross the street - and this after a sunny morning, so everybody wasn't ready to face it! Luckly his school is exactly beside the building where I still work, so I only had to walk ten steps to get there, and it was enough to let me soaked as if coming out from a pool. We had to wait almost one hour until the rain cooled down so we could leave. It's been a long time since we had something like this in Rio, but at least once a year, a really heavy rain gets the city. I get so upset, because it couldn't need to be like that, but unfortunately there are so many people who throw garbage in the streets that the storm drains get overloaded and, like giant covered sinks, they overflow. And authorities never give the proper treatment to the drains, and it becomes a surprise to them when the rain damages the city like yesterday...
All I know that Rio was chaotic last afternoon, and we got home one hour later than usual due to this, with water at our ankles. For Lucas everything was fun, of course, on dad's lap, covered with his raincoat that Rodrigo brought (poor sweetie, he got all soaked too after I called him to bring our umbrellas!), and watching the streets look like a weird river. I could hardly wait to get home and give him a warm shower and take one as well!

5 comentários:

Maebius said...

Wow! that looks both amazing, and yet saddening at the same time. I know just what you mean about trash backing up the storm drains in town, though it's rare to see entire roads covered like that around here. We mostly just get large puddles in the intersections which block all traffic while the rest drains off down the sidewalks.
Hope you stayed dry and comfy the rest of the day at least. :)

KrisMrsBBradley said...

Wow! I'm sure it's frustrating to have the roads flood like that over clogged up storm drains.

I have to say that I do love a big downpour, though.

Michelle said...

That's incredible! As much as I love a good storm I can totally respect the damage they can cause. I am very curious on how I will react to storms when I'm living on a boat. A very different thing altogether, I'm sure!

Great picture!

Olde Dame Penniwig said...

LOL, we get flooded almost every time it storms, because, unbelievably, our city of 100,000+ does not have any rain sewers! The streets are made with a big dip in the middle and lead down to big ditches and sunken parks, so that when it rains, the water flows into them!!! So of course, we get houses flooded and cars floating away, right here in the desert!!!

Dragonstar said...

I'm sure it was all fun for Lucas! Worrying for you though.