On Thursday, July 30th it rained cats and dogs. It was the rainiest day I had seen in a very long time. When I woke up about four o’clock in the morning, I knew it was going to be a weird day. It was cold and unusually dark. The birds were quiet and there was a very slow breeze.
—“Something is going to happen today Aura”, I told my wife.
–“What is it?”, she asked.
—“I don’t know, but it’s a strange day. Take a look outside the window”, I said with a voice of concern.
At 5:30 a.m. (-5 GMT) the breeze got a little stronger and it started to rain lightly with intermittent lightnings and thunder. At six o’clock when I started our car to take my wife to her job, Saint Peter opened the faucet and a river of water dropped over Panama City. It was unbelievable the amount of water falling from the sky.
I turned on the lights of the car to increase visibility, but it didn’t help much. The streets were streams of water. It was difficult to distinguish the road. I think I was driving at about 15 kilometer per hour as well as the rest of the cars on the street. Even though other cars had their emergency lights on, they were almost indistinguishable. The sky above was pitch dark. I knew all along it was going to be a weird day.
Fortunately where I was going was a hilly area, so I didn’t encounter any flooded streets. That was an exception. In downtown, hundreds of cars were floating on the street. The high tide, made matters worse. The high winds brought down several trees making driving very dangerous.
Normally it doesn’t rain that much in July. The wettest months in Panama City are October and November which receive about 48 inches of precipitation a month. On the other hand, February is regarded the driest month with only 7.68 inches of rainfall. In December, precipitation decreases dramatically to less than 32 inches, which is still relatively high.
After taking all kinds of precautions, I got home safely. The rain had abated somewhat, and the first streaks of light could be seen. Being a special day, I went to our terrace and took a couple of pictures for my time capsule.
This was the view outside, from the perspective of our terrace located at the back side of the house. Here we go.
Photograph of the heavy rain that took place on July 30th. You can barely see the tree on the background due to the heavy precipitation. The streaks of rain in the foreground came from the roof of the house. You can also see the accumulation of water on the lawn. (Credti: Omar Upegui R.)
This picture shows how water began to accumulate on one corner of our lawn. Because we live on top of a hill, we have no problem with floods. Thanks God! (Credit: Omar Upegui R.)
If you happen to live in a place like San Diego, California or Las Vegas, Nevada, you would not believe the way it rains in the tropics, specially Panama. Teddy Roosevelt was shocked when he came down to Panama to supervise the construction of the Panama Canal and saw the rivers of water flowing from the Panama sky. Good Day.
