I live in Southern California. If you’ve been locked in by snow for the past two months, you may not know this, but we’re suffering from the exact opposite problem that you’re currently suffering from – we’ve been receiving NO water-based gifts from the sky… meaning we’re in a pretty severe, and slightly scary drought situation. So when it rained last night for a few hours, you could almost hear the rain-dance chants from across the state. Mind you, we’re nowhere near being out of the woods on this – we’d probably need
We’re expecting to get absolutely drenched this weekend. This is good, and this is bad. Obviously, California’s dirt desperately needs hydration, but because we’re expected to basically get slammed this weekend, there’s a high potential for flooding. In fact, they’re expecting this incoming storm to be the biggest, wettest storm SoCal has experienced in about two years.
That’s a lot of rain.
Have you ever “accidentally” killed a house plant, then made some really sad attempt at saving it by watering it? Remember how the water usually just “sits” at the surface for a while? That’s a risk we could face here in the Sunshine State with this incoming storm – the ground is just so dry! That’s why I spent a little bit of time making sure my house and family were ready to ride out the storm this weekend.
Here’s what we did:
1) Cleaned out the rain gutters – they were pretty much packed with dirt and pine needles. If hit with rain, that would just cake together, cause a hot mess, and basically render our rain gutters useless.
2) Sandbagged openings to the under part of the house. I don’t want water pooling under the house – that just sounds like an issue.
3) Went grocery shopping – There will be no reason to head to the store while it’s raining. I know what meals I’ll be making on what days, and I’m adequately stocked. If there’s one thing I really hate about rain in SoCal, it’s DRIVING in the rain in SoCal – it’s true, there are a lot of bad drivers here.
4) Pulled out my Rain Gear – it’s waterproof and fashionable, what more could you ask for?
Things I still need to do (and you should do too)
1) Find my Weather Radio (it’s been hiding since we moved)
2) Find my flashlights (that’s pretty important in case the power goes out)
3) Review the Red Cross Flood Safety Tips (yes, I don’t have EVERY SINGLE preparedness tip memorized)
Stay dry, my friends, and keep those rain dances, chants, rituals coming, so I don’t have to write about drought preparedness later (yikes!).