Sunday, December 26, 2010

The Christmas that almost wasn't...



Happy day after Christmas everyone!  I hope you and all of yours had a relaxing, fun, and food-filled, cruelty free holiday.  For those of you living in flood and weather stricken areas, my heart and thoughts go out to you.  I hope you are safe and not too much damage was done.

Here in Orange County, California, we are just not used to this kind of weather.  And in the area where I live, well, the ground just couldn't take any more rain!

Thanks to the hard work and determination of the firefighters, neighbors, volunteers, family, and friends, the majority of the damage in my neighborhood was relegated to the roads.  A few houses and cars didn't fare as well, but as far as I know, no person or pet was seriously injured.

This is the road/bridge out of town near my house. 4 hikers went missing, but they were found, cold and wet, but okay on Tuesday morning.


Wednesday...same road.  I have seen a few news stories that state 2 persons were killed on the roads during this storm.  My heart goes out to the families of those that lost loved ones.

returned-canyon-sky-close

At the entrance to the road into my neighborhood...the mud pile was over 6 feet high!  Thanks to the quick hardwork of the county, the bulldozers were able to clear a path out (and in!) even though I was too scared to drive through.  I opted to park down the way at the elementary school and hike home through the mud.

This is a picture from Downtown Laguna Beach, across the street from where I work.  This water was pouring over the street into our parking lot.  I've never seen anything like it.






Most of the roads in and out of my house, and to my work have been closed for most of the week.  Turning my normally 45 minute commute into a 2 to 3 hour ordeal in each direction.

Add in the fact that the electricity would go in and out every couple of hours during the whole week, and well you can probably imagine that I didn't get to do much of my holiday baking or cooking this year.

Thankfully, we were able to head out of town and spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with our families and forget about the mess for awhile.

Maybe New Year's will be dryer...

6 comments:

dreaminitvegan said...

Joni so sorry to hear about the area in which you live. We are up in the Central Coast and last Sunday driving up to SLO, on the sides of the freeways the water levels were so high and there were farms located on hills but the road disappeared into the water. Crazy downpour we had so quickly. I'm glad your home is dry though.San Marcos pass got 15inches of rain! n Crazy!

Amey said...

oh my gosh, how scary! I hope your home is alright... and that things get put back together sooner rather than later. We've had a few big floods up here in Santa Cruz over the years, and i know what a trip it is - familiar landscapes look completely transformed.

MeloMeals said...

Wow.. how scary and intense. I'm so glad that you guys are OK.

Anonymous said...

Holy cow! I had no idea the weather was so awful out there. All the news has been about the east coast storms (I'm in VA, and we got over a foot of snow...which is unheard of in my area). I'm glad you're doing ok!

KitteeBee said...

gosh joni! i hope your town is back to normal by now. all this flooding everywhere is so awful and scary.

xo
kittee

Joni Marie Newman said...

most everything is back to normal now, still a lot of extra mus pushed up alongside of the roads, but one nice thing is that all the creeks now are flowing nicely!

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