The Storms and Flooding of Highland

     Most of California has experienced almost an entire week of non-stop rain, about 5 1/2 days of rain, and Highland, the city I live in, was the hardest hit.  For most of the time during this storm, I was very upset, for many of my birthday plans and holiday plans had been postponed or canceled due to the rain.  As of now, I might still be disappointed about my plans being ruined, but I am now thankful that my house, the houses of friends, and other family members were not effected by the floods that took place here today.  I do feel really bad for the 100 people or so who lost their homes in highland to flood waters and mud left behind.  Their holidays have been ruined, along with many of their possessions.


     The first of the storm hit on Friday.  When I saw the rain, I got extremely upset, for I knew this meant I would not be going paintballing with my cousin Krystal and her fiance John on Sunday in Colton.  Later on that day, I started not feeling well, and ended up with a cold.  The rain started off as a drizzle and by Sunday, it was a good steady constant rain.  Most of that time, I was out Christmas shopping in Redlands and Christmas Lighting in Highland with Jane and Scotty, or home sick not being able to hang out with people.  Monday came around, and I stayed home all day to rest, and started to get worried that I might have to cancel my trip to Sea World with Scotty and Jane on Wednesday.  My goal was to rest as much as possible to get better from my cold.  To pass the time, I got 110 photographs printed at Target, and started putting together a photo album of my experiences over the past five years.  I also played video games, mostly Halo, and watched episodes of King of the Hill on Netflix on my xbox.  Tuesday came around, and we have been having constant rain for 4 days.  I looked up the forecasts, and it looked as we were expecting heavy storms that night and the next day.  I contacted Jane and Scotty, and told them to expect me to cancel the Sea World trip the next day.  I tried to go to sleep around midnight, but I couldn't go to sleep.  I normally listen to KOST FM when I go to sleep, but none of the radio stations where coming in due to the rain, so I tried to fall asleep with out it.  I could hear the heavy rain pounding on my window and the roof of the house.  It took me a few good hours to go to sleep.


     This morning (Wednesday), I awoke to my cell phone alarm at 6:00am.  I turned it off, tried to go back to sleep for a few moments, but the heavy pounding of the rain kept me awake.  I finally got out of bed, and turned on the computer to check the weather reports.  As the computer loaded, I looked outside my window to see the street flooded like crazy, and the water flowing fast towards Church Street, which would take the water down hill.  At that point, I knew I wasn't going to be able to make it to Sea World.  Weather reports showed heavy thunderstorm rains in San Diego and here in Highland.  I decided to not even think about it.  I text message Jane and Scotty officially canceling my Sea World trip.  I added it to the list of disappointments. My mom felt bad, so we decided to make bacon and eggs for breakfast later to make me feel better.  Around 7 am, it was light enough to where I put some pants on, and got my little canon camera and recorded the crazy amount of rain and water rushing down out street.  I know some of my friends from other places other than California might laugh and say its nothing, but trust me, it is a lot for California.  Video is below.
  




     After Breakfast, I sent a few hours playing Halo: Reach and on facebook.  I didn't realize how bad the storm really was.  Scotty text me about the bridge collapsing, and I decided to do a google search for news information.  At that time I had learned that a good part of highland has flooded and was covered with mud.  I went downstairs to watch the news, and they had Highland right on.  Right away, I noticed what we call "The Village", the poorer neighborhood south of Greenspot Road got flooded and covered with mud.  I also learned that homes near and around baseline before the hill to our house got flooded, and then the homes to the north east of our house, off of Highland Ave got flooded with mud as well.  I had learned that all the major roads are shut down in Highland due to flooding, and the only way in and out is going through side streets out to the 5th street freeway exit on the 210.  City Creek, that flows out of the mountain, had flooded, and washed out the Highland Ave and Baseline Bridge.  The Boulder City Creek Bridge had been damaged and a portion of it had collapsed.  Right away, I wanted to get out there and see the damage for myself, but I knew that my mom wouldn't let me out there, so I stayed inside.  Around noon, the rain stopped, and sunlight began to shine through the clouds.  Many people had hope the storm was over, but little did they know heavy and crazy thunderstorms where headed their way in from Los Angeles.  At this point my mom was getting worried that my dad cant get home from work, which he works at St. Bernadine's in San Bernardino.  She decided that she and I try to find a way for him to get home, and so we headed out to explore into the flooded city of ours.   

We got into my mom's Chrysler Pacifica and headed down Church Street.  Everything looked normal until we passed Baseline.  We started to notice mud in the street.  We passed Scotty's Street and Arroyo Verde Elementary, and traffic got busy.  When we got to the end of Church Street, you can just see they closed down the west bound side of Greenspot/5th Street.  As we turned around, I noticed massive amounts of mud and some water in "the village" area.  I didn't have enough time to snap a photograph of the mud.  We drove back up Church Street.  As we passed Water Street, I can notice that street was filled with mud as well.  We turned west on Baseline.  At the bottom of the hill, we ran into a large mass of mud, about a inch thick on the road.  My mom started driving real slow, and we ended up driving towards a large mass of mud.  My mom was scared that we would get stuck, so she turned onto Browning Street.  Our plan was to drive through that neighborhood to get to Highland Ave.  The street was covered with mud.  At the end of the street, we could see tractors cleaning up the end of the street.  We turned left on Burns St because the mud was starting to get thick on the road.  Burns wasn't covered in mud, which seemed strange.  We turned right onto Tiara Ave.  Tiara was covered with mud, and we saw people starting to use their shovels to clear out a path for more water to flow down the street.  There was so much mud on the street, at times my mom's car was sliding from losing traction.  I was fine but my mom was freaking out.  We got to Summertrail Pl, and we were turned around by police.  It seemed that major mud slides had occurred in the Summertrail area, and all the roads are closed because they were covered with mud and rock.  We turned around, and headed back.  We turned right on Burns, and left onto Yarnell Rd to Baseline.  When we got to Baseline, we decided to turn right towards the bridge.  We went as far as the road block, parked on the side.  I got out of the car and walked over to the caution tape with my Nikon and took video of the flooded bridge.  Below the photos is that video.

     After taking the video, we turned around, and we decided to turn onto Webster St.  Webster St was jam packed with cars.  It too us a good 30 mins before we got to Eucalyptus St.  It seems that this route is the only way to get in and out of Highland.  We turned around, because the traffic was too much, and we didn't want to leave the city.  We turned around, and drove back up to Baseline, then to Church.  At this time, the sun light disappeared and it started to rain again.  We drove up to Highland Ave and turned left.  We wanted to see how far we can get.  We only got to Carriage Hill Dr before citizens patrol had us.  It seems that Orchard Rd area off Highland Ave was flooded with mud as well.  It seemed that the city all around us was covered with mud.  We headed back home.  My mom talked to my dad.  My dad went to my grandmas after work, and then got home around 5:30pm.  It took him one hour to go from my Grandma's house on Atlantic Ave to our house.  That drive should be 5 mins.  
     We watched the news on the flood issues the rest of the day.  News of the flooding and damage was spreading through the state and ended up in ABC World News.  The heavy crazy thunderstorms arrived around 3:00pm, and ended around 7:30pm.  It hasn't rained since then, and it seems that the storm is over.  We should be waking up tomorrow to some sun shine!  In the past 5 days, we have received 19 inches of rain.  It might not seem like much to some, but it is a lot for California.  We normally get about 20 inches of rain a year, so to have all that rain at once caused issues.  More rain is coming this season, and I hope it wont ruin more people's homes here in Highland.  We are very lucky that we didn't have a fire season this year, where the hills behind Highland burned.  If they burnt earlier this year, the chances of my street being flooded with large mud deposits would have been high, along with other parts of Highland.