Bears come to visit, A look through "The Window", and then Alex

I've been wanting to write about each and every one of these stories since mid june, but something inside me was telling me to wait. Perhaps because I try to put only nice pictures in my blog, but this time I'll make an exception. As these events are somewhat related to each other, I will talk about them in this single post.

It all began on father's day, and we were coming home from his lunch celebration. We were about to turn right to get home until we saw this black bear (Ursus americanus). We drove all the way next to it and we found a smaller one in that garage.

I'd never seen bears outside of the zoo. I tagged on Facebook the neighbors I know that live close by, and in no more than 20 hours the owners of the garage found out.

The Window, or called in Spanish "La Ventana" is one of the mountain tops in Chipinque, our pine tree forested ecological park. I believe it is called that way because of it's U shaped "window" to the mountain ranges back there in the Sierra Madre. It was cloudy down below on the side of Monterrey, but not on the otherside. A random comment: I just remembered the song "Otherside" from Red Hot Chili Peppers, Daniel Vota will know why I wrote that word in orange.

The worst flood disaster in Monterrey happened with hurricane Alex. If you look close enough, you can see the khaki colored river, which is usually completely dry.

Except for occasional few minutes pauses, it rained for two straight days in a row (Wednesday 30th and Thursday July the first). Huge rocks slided off the mountain and a river claimed it's territory over two houses standing on it's way less that two blocks away.

According to our local media (channel 12), 604.4 mm of rain fell in Monterrey (nearly 24 in) because of Alex, that is what we receive on average in one year (550 mm, according to Abimael Salas "the weather guy" or 623 mm according to my book History and Geography of Nuevo León).

Despite the winds were relatively light, rain pounded hard against the windows, as though it was "falling" horizontally. Curiously enough, it even did so two nights before the first rian bands arrived but only for a few minutes (both on Monday and Tuesday night), but in these two and a half years that I've lived in the mountain I'd never heard rain or hail pounding so hard on the windows. Add to that the rain that had fallen on previous days and the little rain that fell yesterday and today.

On Friday morning it has stopped raining, but there was no water on the third floor. On the first and second floors there was some water, so we filled several trays and tanks with water to flush the toilets and to bath. I've no idea how, but the bathroom on the first floor had enough water in the shower head for a while. As of today, Sunday night we've had nearly three days without water, but fortunately, my grandparents and a few friends have offered us water.

Unfortunately this event was catastrophic. Many houses flooded, furniture damaged or lost, major streets destroyed by the Santa Catarina River, traffic will be chaotic for the next few months. Minor streets were severely damaged or destroyed as well. My thoughts and prayers for those who lost all or most of their property, and may Monterrey's metro area recover ASAP.

Just in case you wondered, all these events took place on the same mountain.