• Rain, Rain, Rain and More Rain

This will be a picture driven blog. It's been a really wet year so far, and I don't really remember any predictions that we'd be having an El Nino year. If anything, the predictions were that it was going to be a dryer than usual rainy season. 

Oh well, so much for trying to predict the weather six months or a year out.

People have been sharing a ton of photos on Facebook, and as long as I was out this afternoon, I thought I should take a drive around the city. As I was leaving city hall the first shot I got was of the giant American flag at USA Gas. 

The flag was visibly tugging on the flagpole.

I then drove to Hidden Springs Rd and noticed a fair amount of standing water in a couple of places. Especially at the three way intersection at Catt Rd, behind Stater Bros.

This entire intersection was under several inches of water.

Heading west on Catt Rd. The standing water was pretty much to the center of the street.

McVicar Street was closed due to the swollen channel.

Heading north on Palomar just after Frederick.

Heading north on Palomar just before Plowboys/Arnold Lane. There was standing water from the culvert to past the middle of the street on Palomar. Arnold was basically underwater too.

Gruwell was inundated with water too.

This dip on Palomar can get pretty deep during heavy rains.

Heading north on Mission Trail approaching the library. You can see that the standing water began above the curb on the east side of the road and basically extended to the other side.

Another shot of Mission Trail near the library. The water was pretty deep here.

It thinned out a touch as I got closer to the intersection at Canyon.

It was one continuous pond just before the intersection of Canyon and Mission Trail.

This is one of the driveways into the center that has Dominos Pizza. 

The guy in front of me was trying to pass people on this part of Mission Trail until he figured out that hydroplaning wasn't as much fun in real life as it is on paper. He basically stayed in one lane the rest of the way... but only because there wasn't much of an option.

More standing water to the middle of the road as I continued north on Mission Trail.

Sorry if these images are starting to get repetitive... rain swollen streets tend to do that. This shot is taken as I was approaching Vine.

Olive was pretty deep at the intersection.

I went up Olive Street, and there wasn't much water at the time, but it was clear to see the aftermath of the rains.

I turned east on Lemon Street and encountered a mini torrent of water. There was no other traffic on the road as I proceeded another 100 yards or so before turning around. The last thing I was interested in was encountering Lost Road on a rainy day. 

Another look at Lemon as I headed west.

The last few miles of my journey had me going down Porras Road. As you can see, a lot of dirt and debris had been pushed onto the road by the rushing waters. 

As I was driving back down Baxter, on the east side of freeway, there was a fair amount of standing water that crossed the entire street right at the mailbox cluster.

The culvert between Round Up Feed and Central Avenue was filled to the top with storm water. 

I know there had to be hundreds of other great/stunning photos of road conditions throughout Wildomar. I wasn't able to go down Corydon to check out that area, but I heard that it was astonishing.

Thanks to friend of Wildomar Rap, Richard Deskin (a polished photographer in his own right) for letting me use some of the images he took.

The intersection near the westerly most part of the EHS campus.

This was near Elsinore High School on Almond and Walnut area.

This second view of the stranded car shows that the road was clearly marked as flooded. Gladly, no one was hurt.

These pictures were contributed by Gina Castanon. I had to make a collage because the individual files that I received were this actual size.

Last of the "donated" photos come from city council member Ben Benoit. 

Here is another view of the stranded car near EHS.

If you've ever walked the Murrieta Creek Trail from McVicar to Clinton Keith you may recognize this. If you look closely you'll see that there is about a foot and a half between the water and the bottom of the bridge. That's a lot of water right there.

In conclusion... This rainy season has been one of the heavier ones in years and it's still only the middle of February. 

Lot's of rain forecast over the next 10 days.

It's going to take time for our city to respond to all the road issues. You can rest assured that the damage is on the radar of public works, but if you'd like to report some road safety issues please do so at the following webpage.

Use this link to get to the page to report an issue.

In the meantime, please drive like your kids are in the car ahead of you... and if you're the type that doesn't like their own kids, pretend that John Gotti's kids are in the next car and drive like you don't want to end up in the east river like his neighbor did after hitting twelve year old Frank Gotti when he was on his bike.

Choose whichever works best for you.