Epic Rain/INDY

(First and foremost, INDY!)

April 8th I lied to you. I never finished "a big complaint-saturated post" about the storm and its trivial, temporary effects on my life. But it wasn't my fault. A power outage took my post-creating abilities shortly after I finished describing that part about my computer. (It is being repaired, so I had no way to pass hours online doing nothing while it was raining. Nor could I upload and share my awesome photos, nor could I use it as a flashlight when the power wend out, nor could I update myself on the god damned NEWS! I was using the sluggish Windows '95 [LOL] desktop at my temporary, evacuation house the night of the 8th, and am now borrowing a friend's laptop while she's traveling.)

Anyway, the power outage that night was god's way of saying "Get off your ass and go get drunk with your friends in Baixo Gávea, you lazy shithead," and so I went.

The next day was Friday, and the weather was clearing up. I walked around taking pictures of all the big waves and damages done and such. Here's a good one of the beach in São Conrado, the neighborhood I evacuated, which I was missing pretty intensely at that point.

Treacherous wave and threatening cloud combo!

It rained on and off that day. For example, when I went to visit my house, I found it with two men chopping up the giant tree that fell on it. About a minute into conversation with them, it started to downpour. All I wanted to do was to go inside and crawl into bed, but I had to go all the way back to stupid Gávea!! BAHH!

Saturday, the weather was perfect, finally. Everybody went to the beach, but swimming was another story. The waves were the biggest they've been in Rio in 40 years, reaching up to 10 M. Only real surfers (not the wannabes that always speckle the coastline) were out shredding the gnar in front of all the happy, finally-outside sunbathers.

Rio's most popular beaches featured the biggest waves they've seen
in more than 40 years on Saturday, April 10.

Anyway, Sunday i finally moved back to my house in São Conrado. After sleeping uncustomarily late (losing will to be awake in the boring evacuation house), Lucia, my evacuatoin host mom told me Angela, my real host mom (also her cousin), had already moved back. Having had her son and three exchange students move out within the past month, Lucia really wanted me to stay. She told me to give it a try, stay for the week, and go back to Angela's next weekend if I wanted. I objected, and said I wanted to go back that day. She said tomorrow we could arrange it. I said, if Angela's already back, then I'm going back too. She said, alright, but I'm leaving in a half an hour and you need to leave the key with me, so how about you wait until I get back this evening to leave. I said, I can be ready in ten minutes! I got my stuff together, handed her the key, and was on my way back to São Conrado. It was like being let out of jail, to put it dramatically.

When I got back, Angela and I hugged repeatedly and she said that I was fofa (cute) for being so happy to return. She was pretty fofa herself for being so happy that I returned.

By Tuesday I had whipped up this contrite little tale of the Epic Rain Flight of Fancy Extravaganza! Here are the photos from the story, which you can also find if you click on the link, if you happen to be literate. The first four were all taken outside my house, on the street that runs down the hill I need to descend to get EVERYWHERE. The last two were taken on a walk along Niemeyer Ave, which winds along the coast around the mountain Dois Irmãos and connects the São Conrado/Rocinha area to the Gávea/Leblon area.

This mudslide in São Conrado left a pile of
mud and house remnants standing between me and the rest of the city.

This car was pushed by piles of mud and house remnants
through the roof of the gas station below.

This man and I observe simultaneously the remarkable
mudslide that took down a house in our hood.

The mud/house slide crushed a number of cars
parked on the street below.

Workers work to repair the electrical wires that were crushed three days earlier in this mudslide
along the well-traveled road of Niemeyer. These cars would have been crushed,
had the road not been closed for the better part of the week.

A once-strong wall along Niemeyer Avenue, which winds along the coast in Rio,
was no match for the winds and rain of the epic storm.