a Taj MuttHall Dog Diary: Tuesday's Storm--The Aftermath

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Tuesday's Storm--The Aftermath

SUMMARY: Big storm indeed!
For San Jose, this was the 7th worst storm in 50 years. At San Jose airport (10 miles from here but milder microclimate), this storm provided 2.48" of rain compared to the worse, in December 1995, with 3.27"; and 87 MPH (140 KPH) winds compared to 1995's 103 MPH. I had only one branch blow down, and it was already dead. Boost is happy because that's more sticks to chew on.

My yard is healthily damp now. Everything was so dry that it had no problem absorbing 4" (10cm) of rain.

Reservoirs captured quite a bit of the rain--"enough to provide water for 20,000 families of 5 for a year." (But are still at less than 50% capacity--which is good for flood control at the beginning of the rainy season). Tika is happy because my big pond, which has been dry all summer, now has a foot of water in it and that's her favorite place to pop into while exercising and playing intensely.

Because it has been so dry, no hillsides were already saturated with moisture, so although there were a few mudslides, only a couple of houses (that I know of) were partially damaged by hills rearranging themselves into their living spaces.

Rain has been very good for all those fires that were still burning around the state.

None of my agility tunnels are full of water. That is odd, because usually they fill up with the slightest hint of moisture. Maybe they are so deteriorated that they're now full of little built-in drain holes. At least I don't have to crawl inside to dry them out. (Yes, easier than trying to lift & drain.)

My Internet service is A MESS. Horrible static on the line. Keeps dropping out, over and over and over. Hard to do anything. Phone company says (a) probably water in the lines somewhere and eventually it'll dry out and get better. Probably. and (b) they are so busy making repairs at the moment that the earliest they can have someone come out here is NEXT TUESDAY! Aughhh!

(See, I just clicked Save Now on this blog and it can't because it has cut out again! About the 20th time since I started typing.)

Tonight is agility class. Although Tuesday and half of Wednesday classes were canceled for wind and rain and mud, they've been ongoing since yesterday evening, and it's a *beautiful* sunny day today, so off to class we'll go! Yay!

5 comments:

  1. I have one word for you "Cable." I had terrible issues with internet until I went to cable. Especially in the winter. No no problems.

    We had 6.9 inches of rain down here (neighbor had a rain gauge and some official downtown. Neighbor was 7.2, official was 6.9.

    Exciting times! Vici

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  2. That's a lot of rain, for sure.

    I tried to get cable when I first moved in here. (1) Office said that this house was connected for cable. (2) The guys they sent out didn't see anything on the outside of the house and didn't want to go under the house to look. (3) They'd have to dig a trench through my front yard (under the sidewalk, trees, shrubs, etc.) and I'd have to pay for it.

    So I have satellite tv and phone dsl.

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  3. I *had* cable. Cable sucked. Now I have satellite TV and DSL, too.

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  4. Glad you made it through the 'big one'. We've had some storms like that, before they cleaned out all the run off drains in the neighborhood, we had a 100 year storm on the 4th of July. The neighborhood run off lake, which is five houses down ended up about 10 feet from our back door. Luckily it stopped just in time. Some fast dumping storms still fill up half our backyard, but it drains in a day or so.

    About the cable, we had cable put in when we moved here. The cable company just brought this handheld little trencher, dug down about 6-8 inches, then ran the cable completely around the back of our house to avoid the driveway, then tamped down the trench. Did it in about 20 minutes. No cost.

    A few years later I wanted another connection, so they just ran it from the main box, trenched again, connected through the wall, and cost me about $30. Now I have TV, phone and internet through them, nice a cost bundled.

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  5. Wow, 6 to 8 inches down? I doubt that's anywhere near to code here. No wonder it was free. :-) That's no deeper than if I were even trying to get out some stubborn weed roots.

    Maybe they'll be nicer to me now that 9 years have passed. Maybe I shd call again.

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