Wow, what a weird stretch of weather we've been having here in Woodhaven. When we woke up around 4 am yesterday, on the radio they were warning about a massive rainstorm heading our way, with high winds. Well, we were up and the cameras were charged, so . . . out we went :-)
Woodhaven is so quiet and peaceful at 4:30 in the morning. But the high winds made this a noisy ride around town. There was some drizzling here and there, but the folks on 1010 WINS said the real trouble was headed our way and expected to hit around 6 AM.
We chose Woodhaven Boulevard and Jamaica Avenue as our stakeout for this storm and figured that if we stood under the steps to the J Train, we could keep relatively dry. We were wrong.
This was like a wall of rain, coming down hard and fast.
You can see in the pictures above, the water on the ground already. It's hard to convey how fast the water was falling. Within 8 minutes (we know this because of the counter on our video camera) the water was higher than the curbs.
Visibility had to be limited and drivers were definitely slowing down. This was a slashing rain. Remember, this picture above is just after a few minutes of rain.
The steps we took shelter under were quite porous, so we got drenched. But we'd have gotten soaked anyway. The rain was being blown sideways by the wind. There was no escape.
In spots, Jamaica Avenue was like a small river. The puddles stretched across Jamaica Avenue. We never saw anything like it. Here is our video from yesterday morning:
The most amazing this about this storm, and the aftermath, was that it rained hard that morning for less than 15 minutes. True, the rain continued throughout the day -- but the flooding you see here was from just a few minutes of rain. Which meant it came down hard and fast, something I'm not sure the video quite conveys.
Rain photographs are always so colorful -- these above were taken at Forest Parkway. A lot of that was left over rainwater from the El Train pouring on to the Avenue.
The storm had a little resurgence as you can see by the picture above. Check out the Jamaica Avenue tree blowing out over the avenue on the right. Not something you see every day.
This picture is completely untouched -- the sign on the laundromat came out that way. Weird. It's almost like it has some sort of reflective material on it. Even the reflections in the water are strange.
People were seeking shelter anywhere they could. Here, above, Atlantic and Woodhaven.
Two last puddles -- above and below --
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