The storm

The weather here had been not all that worth mentioning in the two-and-a-half weeks since we first landed in Tbilisi. It was rainy and cold when the plane landed, has been cool and foggy with scattered showers many days. In the village we've had some rainy days, cold mornings and nights, lots of fog nestled among the mountains in the morning and lately, have had sunny and warm afternoons. All in all, it was about what weather.com warned me to expect.

Two nights ago, however, we had the very worst storm I've ever experienced.

It was just about midnight when we all headed off to bed. There was what looked to be heat lightening bouncing off the mountains to the north of us and we thought nothing of it at first. We'd had some rain in the late afternoon and then the clouds had cleared. But as we began to drift off to sleep, the lightening grew more and more frequent and intense, lighting our room up as it flashed. I got up and looked out the window and, even though the flashes came ever half second and lit the whole sky, they were on the other side of the mountains and still resembled heat lightening. I crawled back into bed and we watched, confused, as the sky flickered.

I thought it was thunder that I heard next, but I soon realized it was the sound of the heavens opening up, dumping what Sam deemed Hollywood-special-effects quality rain on our village. We didn't ease into this rain; tankers of water dumped onto our house all at once. It was almost deafening and, though our house is well-built, I worried that no roof would be able to withstand the pounding of that much rain. We could see the rain perfectly, since the sky continued to be streaked with almost constant lightening. It may have thundered as well, but since the rain was so loud, I couldn't tell.

That's when the hail started.

We had hail the size of quarters coming down in a density I didn't think possible for hail. It lasted almost 20 minutes.

We had a little water come in our window, despite it's being latched shut tight, so we busied ourselves with mopping it up and moving things off the floor, as a precaution. Then, just as suddenly as the storm began, it was gone, moving off to find another valley to inundate. No tapering off, no slowing, just silence. That's also when the power went out.

It was now nearing 1am and although it was dark, you could hear that people nearby were up and about in their houses, most likely shaking their heads and wondering at how such a crazy, terrible storm could happen. We heard our host parents up and didn't think much of it until we realized they were yelling and sounded frantic.

We headed downstairs and saw them desperately trying to stem off the river of mud that was streaming into the dining room on the first floor. Pools of water a foot high covered every last surface in their back yard, despite continuing to flow downhill through flower garden and the driveway. We grabbed some flashlights and any implements we could find to help Maia and Zurab clear the drainage system and keep the water from spilling over from the dining room into the bedrooms. We worked for about an hour, mopping up mud and water, picking up branches and moving things out of the newly developed streams. Luckily, the dining room floor is wood and there wasn't anything severely damaged. Luckily, we kept the water contained in the one room. Maia and I got most of the mud and water up after filling three washtubs with debris and mud and water. Sam and Zurab got the drains cleared so the lake where the backyard once was finally drained. We washed most of the mud off the front porch and wrung out the shoes and slippers that got drenched. Then we all went back to bed.

We got up the next morning early, despite the late night. It took most of the day for power to come back, but it was a bright, sunny day, the kind of weather that makes you think the previous night's storm had to have been a bad dream. But the carnage was evident all through the village: trees stripped of leaves and flowers, the mud roads all but washed away, the river streaming higher and faster than it had the previous day, neighbors dropping by to share their experiences and offer help to those with flooded rooms (seems like at least 4 other houses right near ours had some kind of water coming in somehow). Everyone agreed that it was the worst storm in memory. Our 82-year-old host Bebia (grandmother) was close to tears all day, shaking her head and repeating over and over that there's never, ever been a storm so bad in this village in her life.

But life in the village goes on. Unofficial road crews drove around, dumping new dirt and rocks on the washed-out roads, the women in the village spent the day cleaning out the mud that had invaded their homes, the kids went to school and opened the windows to let the sun light their rooms, the last pools of hail slowly melted away and the spooked cows returned to their owners. Sam and I went for a run this morning and the roads have mostly dried out by now.

I hope, as everyone here does, I'm sure, that like Bebia I never see another storm like this in 82 years.