More Snow Melt

Blank Canvas

This is my response to "Invalid Entry"  for Friday, May 15, 2009 in the "Follow the Leader" 

Rain is something that the desert always wants, always desires. It is also something that causes death and destruction in the desert. Rain is both a blessing and a curse, it is a positive and a negative; similar to the lightning that accompanies spring or summer storms here in the desert.

When it rains it pours
dumps buckets of fresh water
onto Las Vegas streets.

Desert storm clouds do not look like a blank canvas. In the desert, clouds are variegated tones of gray, white, and charcoal, extremely beautiful at sunrise and sunset, when the sun attempts to penetrate the layers of clouds waiting to dump their wet cargo onto Las Vegas and the surrounding desert.

When it rains it floods
filling up streets and sewers
flash floods no longer warnings.

In the last century, we had a one-hundred year flood. The Flood Control District did thousands of dollars of work on the sewer and drainage system in Las Vegas. It is a new century and we are waiting for another one-hundred year flood to test the work.

During the flood control work, the workers put bars across the water diversion channels to keep the homeless out of them. It is a safety measure, because one never knows when a sudden surge of water coming down from the melting snow pack (the range of the Rocky Mountains surrounding Las Vegas are the Muddy Mountains) and fill the channels. If the homeless are asleep in them, they have no chance of escape.

This safety measure stops debris from entering the cement channels, so the Flood Control District has to send workers after these flash floods to clean the channels out again. There are other dangers to both the homeless and other residents of Las Vegas and the deserts during these floods as well.

Never drive anything, not even an SUV through moving water or even standing water after a flood. You do not know how deep the water or what is in the water that you cannot see. Neither walk nor drive through water.

A few years ago, a tourist died of electrocution on the Las Vegas Strip because she walked through standing water by a light post. True there was a short in the wiring, but as rare as something like that is, it does happen.

Despite the dangers, rain is always welcome in Las Vegas and the surrounding desert. Rain and snowmelt fill Lake Mead and cause the desert to bloom. One just has to learn the dangers that accompany the rain when it does come. Know the dangers and be over cautious when rain comes to the desert. In addition, if it looks like rain always park on one of the upper levels of a hotel-casino parking garage.