We're a bit behind the ball reporting on this one, but Hurricane Dean swept through our Puerto Rican quasi-paradise, and we lived to tell the tale. Sure, you might point out it was barely a category-3 hurricane when it swept across the open ocean some 300-miles to the south of us, but we were pelted with torrential rains, screaming winds, and it was still the sort of thing that makes news, and not just by our own admittedly low thresholds of newsworthiness.
We got calls from all kinds of loved ones before, during and after the storm, each wishing us well and begging to know we were alright. We were indeed alright, but this hurridean cain was truly super, man (or some recombinant encombination thereof, naturally.)
As the storm system came aground, as it just barely did by meteorological standards, we were tucked snug in the arid confines of the southern dry forest area of Puerto Rico. Though the rainy season, the odd inches of rain we received in a single day were as much as the county generally gets in a year. Needless to say, there was to be none of us playing outside, as we have done so much of this summer.
The rain came down in waves of sheets of wettest, warmest, windiest nastiness. A quick sprint from door to car was enough to soak us through from lightest t-shirt to soggiest Huggies, as whichever of the relevant cases may have been.
The winds were the sort of thing that knocked us sideways in our all-out run, and the parents fared no better, despite their respective masses of self-proclaimed "working on it" magnitudes. Even they were tossed around like gigantic, squishy rag dolls in the wind.
The worst of all of it was the, and I'm not sure I'm saying this correctly, dunder and lightning. The two are indiscernible to me, since they're both elements of God's seemingly random will, but I know one is flashy, and the other quite loud. Like more flashy than indoor photography, and louder than those obnoxious advertisement trucks that roll through the neighborhood at a quarter-to-seven on Sunday mornings extolling the virtues of early enrollment in the nearby trade college.
Seriously, it was that bad, and only slightly less useful.
When all was said and done, which we made sure of by weeks prior to publishing this article, the storm had passed with minimal utility interruption, zero road closures, and only shoe-deep puddles of stagnant mosquito water by which to remember it… oh, also the mosquito bites and risk of dengue, but it's a small price to pay for having survived hurricane Dean, hurridean Cain, or whatever it was we called this tropically weathered madness.
Now if only the driver's could have been bothered to slow the heck down for it, why then we might have had a truly newsworthy story. I tell you people, these drivers here are just about off their nuts when it comes to respecting mother's nature and nurture. It can be sheer madness I tell you, whether in light of hurricane weather or otherwise.
Above - The rain came down like nobody's business, except perhaps for Weather.com, but even that nonsensically inaccuarate website wasn't as accurate as looking out the window. Never is, but what do I know?
Above - This is the actual view from the balcony of our house. It may look ominous, but only because it was. You should have hear the thunder, or lightning, whichever one it is that makes all the noise.
Above - We spent a couple minutes on the balcony watching the storm unravel all around us, but it was loud, loud, loud, and nothing we wanted to be outside for.
Above - Even inside, safe in our concrete house, the thunder was enough to make us cover our ears. If only there was some kind of visual cue that would come before a thunder clap, perhaps by a few seconds, that would just be great.
We're a bit behind the ball reporting on this one, but Hurricane Dean swept through our Puerto Rican quasi-paradise, and we lived to tell the tale. Sure, you might point out it was barely a category-3 hurricane when it swept across the open ocean some 300-miles to the south of us, but we were pelted with torrential rains, screaming winds, and it was still the sort of thing that makes news, and not just by our own admittedly low thresholds of newsworthiness.
