Monsoon...

In the first part of my dream there was a storm...a monsoon storm.

Every summer in Arizona the monsoons roll in....the humidity rises and the afternoon sky fills with ominous clouds that usually accompany a wall of dust that covers everything in its path with grit, and dirt. Then the lightning and rain come...monsoon storms can be very brief, but very intense or they can linger a while causing flooding and wind damage.

It was just after the fourth of July the seventh I think and the monsoon storms were coming in almost every night. The humidity was up and it was 105 degrees or so and the middle of summer. The storm on this particular night built up over the course of a few hours and by 9:00 p.m. the wind was whipping and the rain was coming down in sheets. Central Phoenix was bearing the brunt of this cell of the storm and the radar showed several microbursts (a microburst is a small, very intense downdraft that descends to the ground resulting in a strong wind divergence).

At my office in central Phoenix this particular monsoon was really stirring things up. I work in a large building with a flat roof and an even larger attached warehouse. On the side of the building are two large trees that provide shade and an area for employees to eat lunch or take a break. Lightning hit one of those trees that evening and caused a large limb to break and fall onto the roof. The limb was dense and leafy and completely blocked the rain gutter on this part of the roof. A microburst ensued and at least 2 inches of rain fell. The water having nowhere to runoff pooled on that portion of the roof. Water is heavy - and at 9:37 the roof could not hold the weight any longer.

The roof collapsed and when it fell one of the ceiling beams sheared off the water main that rested underneath that portion of the office sending thousands of gallons of water into our building. The first employee to arrive was a driver who upon entering the lower warehouse dock area saw water seeping out from underneath the doors. Inside the building and the throughout the warehouse stood 17 inches of water. When he unlocked the door and opened it...the cascade of water filled the back parking lot...when the front door was opened an ocean of paper, files, seat cushions and office supplies flowed out of the door and onto our lawn.

We were lucky, had the storm occurred during working hours investigators concluded that at least 10 employees could have been killed with many more injured.