Apres Midnight, Le Deluge

We don't normally get strong storms in October here in the heart of California's Central Valley. Once in awhile we might get some cold breezes or light rains, but nothing like we had today.

When I woke up this morning, the heavens had already opened up. And they haven't closed up yet. I read that we're getting the tail end of some typhoon or cyclone or something from out in the Pacific.

It's not that cold outside. It's just wet. Water falling, water blowing, water pooling. Water everywhere.

The power went out probably a dozen times at school today. This is not good for the electronic equipment, and all of our attendance and grading is done online. Email was out. I discovered that even our phones were out, as they have to go through some central switch in the office. At one point I had lights but the sockets wouldn't work, meaning no computer or overhead--but the teacher next door had computer (no internet, though) and no lights. Most odd.

And the school supposedly suffered through a "modernization" several years ago.

Sometimes the power was off for seconds, other times it was off for up to 30 minutes. These distractions didn't help with student attention, either, when it's been a long time since they've seen the palm trees sway so much, or seen water fall from the sky.

One funny part was the announcements that were periodically made when the power was on. "If you don't have an emergency flashlight, send a dumpling to the office to pick one up" was one. I left the class in the capable hands of my student teacher and went myself, and was given one of those LED flashlights powered by a hand crank. It provides enough light to keep you from tripping over a backpack in the aisle, but not enough even to illuminate the whiteboards I was using when the power went out. The sky was dark with rain, so the classroom was fairly dark even with the curtains open. If I heard correctly, our principal left campus to go buy more flashlights.

It was a circus of a day. I came home to my 50-year-old house and the power hadn't even gone out once. No readjusting of clocks necessary.