Well Then

If you live in BC or the news has made it to you, you may have heard that we had yet another devastating weather event happen here.  (And you may have noticed I did not mention it last week... thus is the way of pre-planning a week's worth of posts, eh?)

So... yeah.

A week ago today, we had a warning that what they call "an atmospheric river" was coming.  So, like, a big heavy rainfall warning.

Similarly to what happened in the summer with the heat dome, they gave us a warning a few weeks back that turned out to be nothing so we didn't expect this to be much and then it was.  It was much.  Very much.

I was woken up in the night (Sunday night) by the rain but didn't think much of it and slept pretty much through.  The benefit to not being on the ground floor of a building, eh?  Anyway...

I woke up and wasn't too worried about the drive as I had a later start time that Monday and so figured the worst of the poolings and road issues would be resolved, plus it would be lighter and just.. I wasn't too worried.

And then I got texts from Jason.  His place was flooded.  Badly.  His place where he lives in the basement.  Where all his stuff is.  His place where he has warned his roommate (the house owner) for years that this might happen.  And how did he find out?  Well, he was sleeping, and his roommates were upstairs when the power to their tv went off.  So one of them headed downstairs to flip the breaker and he saw the water.  He called down to Jason and warned him to be careful because water and electricity (holy cow I'm so glad he was ok... however that worked, jeez) and so Jason woke up far too late to even attempt to save anything.  He figures, after talking to friends, that the flooding probably started about three am and he wasn't woken until around six am so three hours of water pouring up through a whatever drain or something where it shouldn't have but the city pipes got backed up and then proceeded to back up into their pipes and I"m not a plumber but flooding.  Water in where it should be out.  

Jason's entire room is... done.  I don't know if anything is salvageable.  I offered for him to stay with me but he's staying with another friend right now (for which I'm quite grateful as last week was awful for me and I really do need my space and quiet down time to cope right now.)

I don't know how these things work.  House insurance and what have you.  I don't know what the roommate is going to choose to do, I just know I am so incredibly stressed over it and while I can't say that makes sense or is logical it just is right now.

So hearing that from Jason put me into a panic attack, but I still managed to (take something and) get to work.  The drive was a bit hairy in parts, honestly, even though it was probably 10 am, that's seemingly when the worst of the rain hit us... if you can believe it.  (I couldn't)  Anyway, I'm babbling.  I went to work.  I did work things.  I stopped by Jason's on the way home to check in on them.  They were exhausted and drained.  Pun not intended but they had lucked into a something or other pump and had pumped the majority of the water out so they had drained things but were also physically and emotionally drained.  I... didn't know what to do.

I had a bag of, ironically, beach stuff there, so I grabbed it to take home to wash. 

In retrospect I should have grabbed a couple of other things I had there as they have now sat in a water logged room and may be ruined, but such is life and we do the best we can in a panic emergency situation.

I was pretty dazed and out of it but remember my post about "future and past me"?  Well I hadn't done that grocery shop last weekend after all because clearly I hadn't been expecting what we got and the flooding.  So I stopped in at the grocery store, and picked up a few things and let me tell you I really really do wish I had been thinking because I didn't get much.  I just got a couple of minor things and headed home.

And the reason I wish I'd been thinking clearly is that I had a pretty full list that I was going to deal with in the next day or two, and then people got panicky about our supply chain routes being cut off and have apparently gone panic shopping.  Sigh.

And it's not that I'm out of food or anything, it's just that for the first time since Covid I've kind of been holding off on buying things to try to stretch out my money and so my shopping list was quite long and now I don't feel like battling crowds to try to do a big shop and I don't feel like doing a big shop because if we all just don't' over shop right now we'll all be fine.  But... not everyone thinks like that and by Wednesday mid day there were lines at the gas stations and they were running out of gas and the aisles in the grocery stores (I'm told, I didn't go in) were empty like at the start of Covid.

Fuck.

I am holding off a lot of panic.  Too much panic in fact.  My anxiety is way way triggered.

Unknowns that may bring difficulty are really hard on me.

Not knowing what will come of this is really hard on me.

Did we just lose major dairy supplies when animals were drowned?  Pretty sure we did.  How will that impact things going forward?

We're on an island.  One of our main routes up and down the island from this part (Victoria) fell away bye bye and so they're trying to fix it but to fix it they have to close it for hours overnight and during the day they can only let single lane traffic through and so that affects people who use that route every day, and it also affects our supply trucks.  For gas.  And food.  And supplies.  And so people panicked.

I get it.  But I also don't.  I didn't understand the toilet paper panic either.  And I hate it.

I hate that someone worries about gas and maybe says something or posts online and then it spreads and then they all go to buy gas and others see them buying gas and they panic and then they tell people and those people panic and then we run out of gas and I hate it.  I hate it I hate it I hate it.

Anyway... I digress.  Last week was... not ok.

I am physically fine.  Jason is physically fine.  Many others are not.  So many people have lost so much and there are still people stuck due to landslides and evacuations and I sort of have to not read the news and information so much because it's killing me.

I don't know what's going to happen for Jason.  I am so worried.  Some of my reasons to worry I don't really want to get into here right now but I am not ok about him and that's probably a pretty unhealthy thing and I'm aware of that, but it is what it is right now.

A few other work related things happened last week that just made it extra brutal.  I broke down on Wednesday, just one too many straws on my camel's back,  you know?

But this is just a babble post to say it rained way too much.  We're technically ok.  "We" meaning my people and family as far as I know so far.  Jason and I.  If Jason hadn't been flooded out I feel like this wouldn't be bothering me even half so much - I'd just be worried about supply routes and how that will play out in the coming months.  But I'm worried about that AND him and all his belongings and his electronics and work stuff and just, I mean I don't know how this works now.  And selfishly, so very selfishly, his place is my place I go to to relax and rejuvenate and chill out and now it's gone.  It may never be back.  And right now I need so badly to be chilling in his space, watching some show, eating food he cooked for us and decompressing from all this.  And I can't.  And so I have my own hurt and anxiety too.  For me.  

It rained.  It was bad.  I don't think any of us expected it to be this bad, like we didn't expect the heat dome and hey, fuck you if you think the climate's fine.  It's so not fine.  And my anxiety around that is out of control and so I have to just close my eyes and manage today and not think about it all.  I can't.  I just need to cope.

Our province is hurt.  Badly.  Well, I mean this southern portion anyway.  The places I know and grew up and lived in and do live in.  Brutal.  Broken.  Damaged.  Mother nature is not happy with us.  We do not win over her.  Water.  So very damaging when it wants to be.