AdmiNirvana

It has been almost a week, and the situation out / up here has gotten slowly, and progressively worse.   Most of the fire seems to be focused on the west side of town now, and the smoke has cleared out of the valley for the most part, giving us a view of what is going on up in the higher elevations.

That is pretty much what we have been seeing.   It’s pretty scary how close a few are getting to town, but in general Redding is not nearly densely forested as the surrounding mountains.  So nothing to worry about, yet.

Some good news is that the majority of fires on the east side have been contained or extinguished altogether.

More thunderstorms are in the forcast for the weekend.  Great.

This past Saturday morning I went up to Benton to take one of my last lessons and instead watched a nasty lighting storm roll through.    Mix lightning and dry terrian, and you can imagine what happens next.

We have about 50 or so major fires going on in the highlands around us, and all the smoke is settling down into the valley around Redding.   It smells like BBQ outside and the Sun has turned an eerie red-orange color; you can stare at it without even squinting.

One of the Mt. Lassen fires is a few miles away from my parents place in Shingletown.

I’m in Michigan for work, and was quickly reminded just how bad things can get here.

This afternoon, I drove through what I can easily say was the most terrifying weather I’ve ever experienced. The national weather service has already confirmed two tornadoes, with current estimates being four total. Straight line winds were measured at 70 MPH. It started right after I left work at 5:30pm, on the West-side of the city, and was headed to Grosse Pointe on the East side.

Right before I was getting on I-696 west, I saw the funnel cloud pictured spinning wildly–it almost looked liquid. It was heading right towards me, and I (stupidly) decided to try and outrun it on the freeway.

Bad move. I caught three or four red lights before I reached the on ramp, and that’s all the time the storm needed to bear down on me. At the last red light a massive white blast of lightning hit close enough to cause a simultaneous boom and blowing up a transformer in a brilliant green mushroom cloud–it temporarily blinded me.

Then the rain hit. I’ve never seen it rain this hard in my life. Weather reporters are now claiming there was 3″ of rain in 30 minutes. Winds were blowing it so hard at the car that water was making it inside while the windows were rolled up. I could not see out the windshield at all, even with the wipers at full blast.

I-696 sits below street level, at some parts by more than 15 feet. Water was starting to build on the freeway, and pressure in the storm sewers causing air to blast water up four feet high from them as I drove by. At first I was excited by the sudden weather, but now I was honestly scared for my life–not knowing whether it was safer to stop and risk getting flooded out, or continue and try to push through it. It was that bad.

Luckily I made it to Grosse Pointe okay. Apparently right after I exited the freeway, the water was getting to four feet deep in spots.

At this time Fenton, which is further out on the West side of Detroit is in full lockdown with a complete power outage and building damage. There is a curfew in effect there.

I snapped a couple pictures on the iPhone in between clutching the steering wheel.