What weather we’re having, it’s just not on, we came to
Spain for wall to wall sunshine but of late it’s anything but.
In the early morning hours of Sunday night we were awoken by the booming of distant thunder and the gentle patter of rain on the RV’s roof, soon
the patter turned into a thundering drumming sound as the heavens opened up with
a vengeance.
Thunder crashed and ricocheted off the nearby mountains and
lighting lit up the sky all around us.
It was a fantastic light and sound display
but I quickly realised the potential problems for us.
Firstly our awning was
still up. Out I rushed braving the downpour and unhooked the storm straps and
quickly rolled up the awning into the stored position. A lightning bolt hit the
nearby Marjal elevated sign with an ear splitting crack and all the camps
lights went out.
I struggled on through the storm's rage packing away what items I could
out of harm’s way as the roads soon turned themselves into rivers.
Gusts of
wind whipped two of our windbreaks (That were securely held down with right-angled
steel storm poles) out of the ground and trying to secure them back into a
pitch that was now going soft underfoot was a problem, but securing them with extra-long
spikes eventually did the trick.
So at 5 o’clock I sat back inside the RV with a warm cup of
tea and an early breakfast (in the dark) to watch nature’s fury vent its self
out in all its glory. By daytime the
storm had passed over and I went out to see what the damage was.
For us it was relatively small, we had two small wet patches inside the RV where the rain had been forced inside the living area’s slide out (we
had rescued it from any further damage by retracting the slide to the parked
position, although this gave us less living space it prevented any further intrusion
of water).
This has happened before when strong winds and heavy rain hit us from
a certain direction, something I will have to get sorted once back in the UK.
Outside all the windbreaks had held so it was just a case of
sweeping off grit and leaves that had blown over the matting, but the ground
underneath had become decidedly soft, luckily I had rescued some timber off the
builders and had used these under the RV’s Jacks to spread the load when we
first set up so nothing had sunk in.
The TV news informed us that four people had died in
flooding that night just up the coast (it’s now been raised to five) which on top
of the two who had died earlier this month shows how dangerous these flash
floods can be.
Touring the site most people had escaped without too much inconvenience,
but I noticed several peoples awnings and storage tents blown down and one of
our friend’s awnings had been totally inundated with water when a nearby drain
could no longer cope with the deluge. Luckily they had rescued most of their
belongings before the water poured through.
We realised that we needed a storage tent to protect
anything left outside and decided to order one from SOT Caravans who where down near the
airport.
After one abortive trip to visit them on Monday afternoon we succeeded
on the Tuesday to obtain a strong Inaca one, which we proceeded to erect as
soon as we got back. Thankfully the ground had started to dry out by now.
On the journey back we noticed how high the river Segura had become,
no chance of crossing that on the cycles over the ford now which would have
been under several feet of rushing water.
I attended an art class that afternoon run by the Animation tem
and at seven o’clock Kay and I went out with loads of other campers for an all you can
eat €10 Chinese meal, which was once again excellent.
It’s now Wednesday morning and once more rain and thunder
are disrupting our stay, the roads are once again like rivers and we’ve
retracted the living areas slide out to keep any water out, at least the
storage tent is now keeping our external possessions dry an safe. We are sitting here watching the horizon for signs that the storms are passing as everyone else on the
site seems to have hunkered down until it clears.
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