A little rain......

Hi everyone!  as you know I live in the desert.  the Sonoran desert.  we get an average of  5 - 7 inches a year in rain.  I think closer to the 5".  The last time I was out of town the Phoenix area - especially the northwest side of Phoenix, received a huge amount of rain.  lots of flooding and damage.  My mother and I were watching the news and amazed of the destruction. 

So, I am out of town again.  this time Mesa, gilbert, chandler get hit hard.  Like in over 5" of rain in some places!!!  How is that possible?  Our home is fine.  And our children's homes are fine.  everyone has had an adventure in getting to work and kids to school. This all happened on September 8th.  The freeway is still closed in some places. 

As you go into our neighborhood,  there are retention areas on both sides of the street, as well as in other parts of the  neighborhood.  after the rains stopped, Bruce found this

  

What a mess!  a friend of mine, posted that her ceiling in her garage was about ready to come down!  Yikes!!!! 

  

our neighbor at the end of the block took these pictures.  her home is right next to the retention area.  Same retention area as the pictures that Bruce took.  just the other end. 

This is about 1/2 mile from my son's home.  My parents use to live in the neighborhood many, many years ago. 

This is a friend's home!  can you see the diving board? there is a pool there somewhere!!!! 

This is another friend's home.  This is her front yard.  Cute quilt, huh!!!!  She has a desert tortoise.  Sure hope he got to higher ground!   

so thankful no lives were lost. and my family is safe!  I am a AZ native, I have never seen anything like this.  They started recording rainfall and temperatures in about 1901.  BEFORE we became a state.  there has never been this much rain in all that time!  I wonder what winter will bring us......

hugs....