San Francisco storms

[gordonzola]

My apartment is very San Franciscan. Drafty windows that vibrate in the wind like speakers playing Motorhead. No central heating, just drafty hallways that are colder than any upstate NY apartment when you get up in the middle of the night. A window in the bathroom that always needs to be cracked open at the top because there's no ventilation and it's the only way to prevent Sistine Chapel-worthy mold designs on the ceiling. I know it's Edwardian, not Victorian, only because that's the kind of thing you pick up living in SF for a couple of decades.

I love the banging of the windows, the smack of the rain on the glass, the sound of hail, even if it isn't hail, on the roof. This last storm reminded all of us who were here of the storm in 1995 that smashed up the Conservatory of Flowers.* I had separate conversations about it with both anarqueso and jactitation probably because we spent that storm in my room watching storm damage on TV. At least when we had power.

I love storms, but for the last few years I couldn't. My workplace is in the lowlands of San Francisco, in a formerly industrial area that never had an income base to demand drainage repairs or sewer modernization.** During heavy storms and hide tides, this city floods. Our little section of the city, really our two block area, has flooded the last few years whenever we get a heavy fog.*** Our store's backstock, a foot or so below street level filled with rain water and overflowed drains so often that we started expecting to close during every storm. I spent a few hours of one storm, when my arm was injured and I couldn't mop, outside our front door, rain blowing in my face, trying to explain that we were flooded to customers coming from areas just blocks away which didn't have our problems.

So Friday morning, when I got to work at 6:45, I expected to grab a floor squeegee, not a handtruck, and spend the morning pushing water and bleaching. I think all of us there did.

We've spent years, and a lot of money, trying to fix this problem. I mean there's nothing you can do in a storm like a few years ago when cars were floating down Trainor Alley and water poured in through the bottom of the closed receiving door on Folsom St., But Friday was a giddy day. All the worker-owners were happy. This was a big storm**** But except for two very small floods in one backstock area, we stayed dry and open.

So, hopefully, now I can go back to feeling the wind, worrying that the house will blow down, watching the umbrella carnage pile up on the streets and trying to figure out which trees will fall and which will survive. I really missed enjoying bad weather without worrying about being called in for emergency flood duties. Whoo-hoo stroms!

Edited to add: Hold on! Here comes storm #3. I can't here my stereo over the sound of the rain hitting the roof on my home office.



*This isn't the best article about the storm but what a simile! "the monster windstorm that shook Golden Gate Park like a naughty child" . Issue alert!!
**it's truly a city-wide problem, but some things flow downhill
***Yes, that's an exagerration. But not much of one.
****Certainly the tide/rainfall combo wasn't the worst possible, and that's the single worse factor in San Francisco flooding, but last year we would have been shut down for hours in with this kind of rain.

Comments

[serazin.livejournal.com]

Thanks for linking to the Conservatory blowing down. I was trying to explain that to smallstages last night and I was all, "well, ten years ago this big giant glass thing, you know, those things you put plants in? It broke in a big storm!" and she was probably thinking, "Uh, whatever?"

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

that was a huge event! surely deserving a better similie than "shook like a naughty child".

[sparkle-shortz.livejournal.com]

I think it's a pretty good simile actually, just fucked up. But it's quite vivid.

[serazin.livejournal.com]

Yes, clearly G hasn't seen a naughty child shake recently! A naughty enough one could most certainly destroy a victorian-era tourist attraction!

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

I took it to mean the way a parent should shake a naughty child when they are bad. Maybe my interpretation is off.

[serazin.livejournal.com]

Oh no! That hadn't even occurred to me! Yes, that is a terrible analogy.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

re-reading I think I was wrong. Eh, just proving I'm childless, I guess...

[smallstages.livejournal.com]

No, I think you are right.

"the monster windstorm that shook Golden Gate Park like a naughty child"

windstorm = parent

I feel bad that I undermined your self-confidence. But Felix started it.

[magpiesf.livejournal.com]

heh. cars floating in trainor alley. i think that was the year i saw manholes "floating" in 4 inches of water on 5th st because the backflow out of the sewers was so strong. i remember riding down harrison in about the same amount of water, swerving to avoid "logs"... ew.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

yeah. so gross.


of course now it's pouring again and I'm worried what I'll find when I get to work...

[smushy.livejournal.com]

I remember that storm so well.. I had just started at the Chronicle and to be at work at 7:00 on Sunday morning I had to take the owl on market. At Church and Market I walked down what I thought was a sidewalk just to find myself literally thigh-deep in water with rain pouring horizontally under my umbrella. Turns out Church and Market is an old riverbed. Who knew.

Can you believe I get my ass to work on time and am wringing my socks out into a trash can in a remote end of the customer service floor and Dee Holiday (Google yourself, girl.) literally writes me up for having an "unprofessional appearance".

I didn't quit just to piss her off.

What were we talking about? Oh! Rain! I love rain. I just spent all morning tromping around in it. I'm a go write a post about it.

[dcart.livejournal.com]

I don't think we got it quite as badly down here, but the storms yesterday were impressive. I was teaching an eastern time virtual class. My power flickered off a couple of times and I had to arrange for a backup in case it went all the way out.

Less than an hour ago we heard thunder. I don't think I've heard thunder since we moved to California.

[caffeina.livejournal.com]

thumbs up on apt choice of music

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

thanks for noticing it!

[rivetpepsquad.livejournal.com]

I want you to know that this Gouda is my new life partner. We'll probably be moving in together some time soon. I know it's all so fast, but you know, when you find the One...

[slipkid.livejournal.com]

I have a friend named strom, he got called storm at my wedding. I'm sure he will be happy when I tell him you gave stroms a Whoo-hoo!

I guess I couldn't get enough of the storms because I went down to Ontario on Sunday. I hated that plane-landing. Heck, I don't like flying.