Drip ... Drip ... Downpour

Fact. The light from a star is years old by the time it reaches us on Earth. The Sun excluded.

More on how this applies to preparedness later.

On a less ambiguous note, you probably heard how The Monsoon was causing flooding in Flagstaff. The communities of Timberline and Doney Park and others saw the “worst” of it on July 20 when flooding and debris flows damaged homes and roads and closed Hwy 89.

I went north to help film and photograph the damage, the recovery and mitigation efforts.

Click … a home encircled by battlements of stacked sandbags.

Click … volunteer firefighters filling and stacking sandbags on pallets.

Click … a plastic chair stuck in three feet of mud.

That last photo got me in trouble. In the time it took to snap the picture, a gentle drizzle turned to rain. And at that moment, I thought about the stars and light.

The same rule that applies to stars also goes for flash flooding.

It's raining where you stand? Who cares. It’s about where that rain was before and how long ago.

Sooner or later it dawned on me to get outta there, and I hurried to get out ahead of flow coming down the mountainside. I lost the race.

Can’t go that way.

That direction’s no good either.

I think maybe I stayed too long.

I sat sandwiched between two flows of rushing water for the better part of an hour and thought I know better. And I did.

I was fine in the end, but the take home lesson is to know better too. Know how disasters like floods start. Know the signs and the basic “science” why something happens the way it does.

Equal parts common sense, instinct and being informed can keep you out of an emergency predicament. It’ll keep you safe, and would have kept me dry.

Things to Remember in September

The one thing I miss most about living in Flagstaff is the change of seasons. You didn’t need a calendar. You just needed to step outside, look around, and feel what time of year it was.

I’ve always been partial to autumn. The aspens change colors, the air gets nippy in the evening, and wood smoke from previously dormant fireplaces foretells of holidays fast approaching. It doesn’t hurt that my birthday is in October, making autumn my own.

The changes of seasons in Phoenix are, shall we say, more subtle. Summer eventually loosens its death grip on us and the only way we recognize autumn is that it seems vaguely pleasant in the morning. Then we brag about the weather to out-of-town friends and relatives for seven months until summer begins again. That's our change of seasons in the Valley.

It was a shock to the system when I moved to Phoenix 10 years ago and realized there would be no colorful leaves on the ground, or bright green buds of grass in April. I’m not sure why this was a surprise, because I was quite familiar with the climate in the Valley having grown up 142 miles north of it. It made me miss and appreciate the obvious signs of the different seasons.

We find ourselves on the verge of autumn, which this year starts Sept. 22. The colors of the leaves in my old hometown and elsewhere will bear watching, and if my desktop weather gadget is at all accurate – and it has been so far – nighttime above the rim is already in the upper 40s. And that’s at 9 or 10 p.m.

Before long, we here in Preparednessville will begin posting messages about driving in winter conditions, staying safe in cold weather, and ensuring your house is not a holiday death trap. It all seems simultaneously far away and just around the corner.

What better way to help summer relax the vise it has us in and prepare for a new season by remembering one thing today, Sept. 21: Take five minutes to check the batteries in your smoke and carbon monoxide alarms.