The Miracle of a Natural Disaster
By being insanely inconvenienced, my family's lives were saved!
I haven't posted here much lately, and I'm sorry about that. We've had a lot going on. But last week, our lives took a drastic turn, after what I can only describe as a miracle.
Where do I start? At the beginning, I suppose.
My fiance, Dave, and I moved to California's Morongo Basin in early 2022. Dave had been attracted to the area after developing post-traumatic stress disorder. He was living in Burbank, California, when he experienced an incredibly traumatic incident of physical violence. He needed to recuperate somewhere quiet, somewhere secluded - somewhere the opposite of LA. He found this place. And I joined him.
You probably don't know the Morongo Basin by name, but I bet you know the name of the national park it's famous for: Joshua Tree. The area around Joshua Tree National Park consists of a handful of desert communities that run the gamut from hardscrabble to Instagram-ready. It's all beautiful, and we weren't sure where exactly we wanted to live.
By chance, we met a man with some property to rent. He owned a 25 acre ranch housing an RV, which was ready to move into, and also a full-sized home he was refinishing. He told us that, if we were willing to live in the RV for 90 days, we could then rent the whole house.
It seemed so fortuitous that it must have been meant to be, and so we landed about fifteen minutes outside the city of Twentynine Palms, which still gives off a real Wild West, homesteader vibe. But our experience living there didn't actually shake out as we expected.
While David did appreciate the solitude, the RV was really not, in fact, livable, and the house was never worked on at all. We sweated through 110° temperatures - or higher. We dealt with malfunctioning plumbing. We tried our best to avoid the kangaroo rats and mice that regularly entered the RV from underneath it. And we put up with the absence of hot water in winter, and cold water any other time. And there was a curious sewage smell, too. Let's just say we did not get used to it as time went by.
As Dave's PTSD receded, it became clear that it was past time to move.
For two months, we scheduled appointments to view apartments and houses throughout the Basin area. Almost every time, we'd get scooped: we would schedule an appointment to view a property, and then we'd show up that night or the next day and find that the listing was snapped up, off the market. It was incredibly frustrating.
And then, a couple of weeks ago, we found a delightful apartment in beautiful, much cooler Yucca Valley. We scheduled a tour, and when we arrived, the representative was actually there, waiting for us! We decided to apply and were approved almost immediately. We were told we could pick up our keys on Saturday, May 20th.
We made the half-hour drive eagerly last Saturday night. We filled our cars with as many small belongings and bags of clothes as we could, expecting to make these smaller trips several times until, eventually, there would be nothing left to move except furniture. At that point, we would hire a moving truck.
The next day, we set out again after Dave finished work. It was about 3:30 in the afternoon, and as we loaded up both cars, we noticed that the glaring sun seemed a little less intense. In fact, it was covered by big, fluffy clouds, bright white with just the tiniest hint of gray. I looked up the forecast on my phone, hoping to confirm the temperature drop. Indeed it had cooled off, and Google told me there was a 20% chance of rain.
I adore rain. I love a good storm. I revel in being safe at home while nature throws a gigantic fit. It makes me feel cozy and happy in a way that almost nothing else does. As we drove away, I remember thinking, “I hope I don't miss the rain!” But I doubted I would. It almost never rains in the desert. And, for some reason, our particular patch of it rarely receives any rainfall, even as we can see it falling on the nearby mountains.
But as I glanced in the rear view mirror, I felt a little cramp of worry. Where were those cotton-ball clouds? All I could see behind me was gray. And as I drove further, the gray turned a sickly greenish-brown.
Our dog, Jasmine, and I followed Dave's Toyota Yaris through the town of Joshua Tree and into Yucca Valley in my Hyundai Accent. Tiny little cars, but we could fit a surprising amount of stuff inside them. My car was loaded up with shoes, clothes, makeup, and suitcases full of Dave's journals, while his car was absolutely stuffed to bursting with our gigantic beanbag. Earlier that morning, I had bought a thrift-store side chair, so I would have a place to rest my messed-up arm while moving. That chair and the beanbag would be the only furniture in the apartment, but again, that was by plan. Furniture would come last.
At the new apartment, one of us sat, holding Jasmine's leash, while the other moved in a few loads. It would have been much easier to leave Jasmine tethered outside with a bowl of water, as we usually did, but we wanted her to get to know the new apartment and see that some of her stuff was here, too: I had brought along a few of her toys, and I figured they could stay here to help her adjust.
After only 25 minutes or so, our cars were empty and we were ready for the drive back. I noticed that the sky was dark, even here.
I chronicled our drive back to Twentynine Palms at this post on God of the Desert Books, Dave's Substack. The short version, though, is that it sure did start raining. And raining. And raining.
I had never been to the desert before moving here. I assumed that the thirsty sand would eagerly slurp up every drop of water that fell from the sky. After all, the desert-hardy cacti, ocotillo, Joshua trees, and Spanish daggers do need some water to flourish, as do the mesquite plains that cover the immediate area around the RV.
But the problem with sudden rainfall in the desert is that the sand can only absorb small amounts of water at a time. Yes, those desert plants do need water, but their root systems are so deep below the sand that it takes a long time for rainwater to flow down and be absorbed.
And that means flash floods. The hills and crevices of the desert are actually some of the land’s most dangerous flood zones.
Natural forces and urban planners alike have tried to channel these gushing rivers that can spring up by funneling the water into washes, or arroyos. These are essentially ditches that water has carved and humans have augmented. Strategically placing washes to flow away from settlements prevents houses and vehicles from being lifted right off the ground and carried away.
But any downhill slope that's relatively clear of debris can also act as a wash - for instance, a slope such as the road the RV was on.
We got hung up trying to access the RV - trying to get home - because two streams had formed and begun to gush across the paved road. Luckily, we had the sense not to try to ford them. What we didn't expect, though, was that the dirt road we would have then needed to drive a mile down had become a river itself.
We concluded pretty quickly that the best thing to do would be to go on back to our new apartment in Yucca Valley, empty though it was. We thought we'd spend a night or two here before access to the RV was restored.
So we were shocked to learn that the road leading to the RV wasn't just flooded. It wasn't just soggy. It was gone entirely.
A wonderful neighbor, Tony, has ferried us back and forth a few times in his 4x4. I watched, dumbfounded, as the SUV crept slowly through the jaggd cliffs that now jut out and drop off where Ball Road was. It's astonishing. It's unrecognizable.
Tony told us the floodwaters were a hundred feet wide and four feet deep. I can hardly picture that.
So, no, we won't be sleeping at the RV again. We have moved. What's left now are a few more trips with Tony before he helps us move our big stuff. Jasmine probably won't go back there again.
And what's absolutely wild is that, although living there drove me half out of my mind, in a much hotter area, first with no air conditioning, and then, later, with bad air conditioning, with plumbing that functioned only off and on, and with the persistent sewage smell from God knows what, I might … miss it? Just a little bit?
Why? I don't know. I guess I just didn't realize, when we pulled out of the driveway last weekend, that I was saying goodbye.
But what I can't get over is how amazing it was that we weren't there when the flood happened. It's a miracle.
First of all, nothing except moving would make Dave and me leave the house in both cars. Whenever we go out, we of course drive together, in one car! And we don't always take Jasmine. We often leave her tethered outside in the shade.
Water a hundred feet wide and four feet deep? She'd have drowned.
And if we'd all been home, we would still be stranded. We wouldn't have been able to so much as get to the mailbox, let alone start moving into the apartment we've paid for access to.
We would have run out of food. We could have asked our neighbor to drive us out, but then, where to? A hotel?
One of our cars could have washed away. Or both. And even now, the muddy playa-like ground around the RV, where there was once regular sand, is becoming a breeding ground for a tremendous number of insects. Living in a 34-year-old RV, with torn screens and random cracked openings in the undercarriage, we'd have very little defense from them.
We are so lucky.
And even if, somehow, we had been out in both cars, with Jasmine, we'd still have been up a creek - or a wash - without a paddle if we hadn't just happened to have gotten the keys to a new apartment the previous day.
We are so, so lucky.
So, I'm concluding this update from my new bedroom in Yucca Valley! Of course, it'll feel more like a bedroom when we actually get a bed in here. Ditto the living room, and a couch. But a safe, dry, air-conditioned home is a hell of a blessing, and I think we're going to be happy here.