That was amazing! #bouldercolorado

OK that was the longest loudest hail of my life.

Stood outside beneath Trident’s awning, got soaked, but it was exhilarating. Felt like a laundromat for the soul, or carwash for the spirit.

Then spent 15 minutes or so getting soaked trying to help stop the flooding in the back, moving sandbags and rocks and plastic walls to push back the torrent while getting poured on half the time (literally, downspouts above me minus the spouts).

Then went back out front and all of West Pearl was flooding, into Wonder, Trident, Classic Facets, pretty much every shop on the south side of the street. The drains had all clogged up with hail and detritus from the poor trees, ravaged by hail. Folks were shoveling and trying to push it back but it was pouring into the shops, threatening to flood Trident, held back only by the little riser between the door frame and that wasn’t gonna last much longer with the heavens still pouring down. I was fully soaked by that time and had rain boots on so I started feeling along the street with my boots (which had hail in them!). You couldn’t see the gutters or anything, waterhailslush a few feet high in places, until I found the drain. It was clogged up and I started kicking it open and soon enough the whole street like a bathtub with the stopper pulled started swirling around my feet, draining from the north side too, so satisfying, and the flooding receded from the shops. A sweet barista friend said “free juices for life!” and I said “I think this is the start of my City Council campaign, I just saved West Pearl!”

[For photos and vidoe, here]

 

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Went inside and thankfully Eric Budd, who I was meeting with, was still waiting and we had a good talk and listen.

Biked back up to home and got Winnie out of his crate (I’d biked downtown and almost had taken him with me and the hail started as soon as I got on my bike, glad I didn’t take him) and we went outside and he fell in love with the hail, sitting around like a blizzard with torrents of mostly-calming water, and I explored my neighborhood a bit, remembering the flood of 2013, and saw that yet again our big drain above dozens of houses wasn’t pulling from the flooded areas. City did nothing to help our neighborhood. So much hail it’d washed out the red paths in the historic cemetery, flooding many graves.