Flash Flood

Back home now, remembering our adventures, one of which was a little too close for comfort.

It was Friday evening and we had just returned from a day of hiking and sightseeing in Canyonlands when our cell phones began to blare with warning messages of flash floods. Scary, yes, but hardly cause for concern, we thought, tucked away in our motel on Main Street in Moab. 

What hubris! We had only gone across the street to dinner, but decided to browse in a bookstore on the way home. Not just any bookstore, by the way. Back of Beyond was started by friends of the writer Edward Abby shortly after his death in 1989. Its selection of environmental and place titles was phenomenal, and I was absorbed, as I usually am in the presence of great books.  

In retrospect, we should have been alarmed by the sandbags we stepped over to enter the store; we assumed they were just a precaution. But no more than 15 minutes after I snapped the rainbow photo above, I looked out the bookstore window to find that Main Street had vanished — with a river of brown water flowing in its place. 

So much precipitation fell so quickly that creeks overflowed their banks and water poured off the mountains that surround the town. We couldn't exit the front door of the store, but a helpful clerk let us out the back, where we walked several feet before finding that the side street we'd hoped to cross was just as flooded as Main Street. 

We searched for other routes back to our hotel, which we could see but couldn't figure out how to reach. By then it was pouring again, and we had lightning to worry about as well as the swirling stream. It wouldn't be pleasant to wade across, but we had no other choice. 

We took a deep breath and plunged into the water, which came halfway up to my knees. It was murky and brown, cold and deep. The current was brisk. Had the water been a bit higher the cars on the road would have been floating. As it was, I later heard there were people kayaking in downtown Moab. 

By the time we reached the hotel our shoes and pants were soaked. But we were overjoyed to be back on dry ground, and I have a new respect for flash floods.