Flash Flood

Late Thursday night/early Friday morning, without any warning from the Taiwan weather bureau, several months' worth of rain dumped down on Northern Taiwan.  Our little cottage didn't suffer any damage, but the surrounding area got a good hammering.

Closest to our hearts was the car park Richard recently dug out, near the little creek by our house.  Two days ago, it was a flat space to make my car.  After the rain, it looks like this:

Last week, the children and I fed the fish down by the stream:

Yesterday, it looked like this:

As we were heading out to school at 7:20am, our neighbor came over and told there had been a landslide, and not even scooters could get past.  She led us up this rarely-used mountain road and back down the hill, so we could bypass the landslide.  It was very nice of her to come and show us this road.  It was a bit scary, though.  Water was rushing over the road like a small river and there were rocks all over the place, too.  By the time I had to drive to the school at noon to pick up the children, the military were out cleaning up a lot of the mess.  And when we came back in the evening, the slip had been cleaned up.

The school's nature area was totally underwater on Friday.  I parked inside the school, as the carpark area was pretty sludgy, too.  Luckily, the rain eased off by noon, so things have had a chance to dry out a bit.

During that heavy rain, Richard got up several times to check the land.  Today, he asked a guy over to look at building some walls to redirect the water and support the bridge.  Having grown up in a wet area and with a father who built national roads for a living, I had mentioned to Richard about the bridge before.  The dirt under the bridge has been slowly disappearing over the years since it was built, I imagine.  It would only be a matter of a time before it all eroded underneath and the bridge collapsed.  I feel lucky that we had this downpour, as it has made Richard aware and now the gentleman will be helping fix things up to be more secure.

We woke to a sunny day today.  Very hot and sunny.  It's often the way - beautiful clear weather after a big stormy night.  A day like we had for the barbecue.  Here's a picture of our yard on a sunny, clear day: