Franktown Cafe

Well, at least here in Washoe Valley, it wasn’t all that. In the last couple of years we’ve had deeper snowfalls and higher winds. Even the rain just reminded me of a rainstorm last year. I don’t think we got the predicted 10′ of snow and 200 mph winds on the ridgetops either.

But we don’t get many “natural disasters” or even severe winter weather anymore so I can’t blame the news and weather community for getting all excited once in awhile. We all get tired of endless network coverage of storms back east and in a sick way feel kinda left out. It even seems to be standard operating procedure for weathermen, when standing before the national map, to stand to the left, obscuring our region.

Our thoughts go out to the folks in Fernley today though who are suffering a flood from a canal breach. Initial blame is being placed on an anonymous gopher although no gopher terrorist group has claimed responsibility. I’m sure this will cause months of recriminations for all concerned as apparently many in the area don’t have flood insurance and even if they do it is still a big mess. Was it classified as a flood plain? Is it a coincidence that a gopher hole caused the breach during the big storm? Was there a lack of human concern for the danger of gopher holes?

Already looking forward to the next “storm of the century”.