Dalancroft

I live on the Bay Area Peninsula about 20 minutes south of San Francisco. Although not on par with a nasty cold Nor'Easter, or certainly hurricane or tornado country, today's powerful storm produced anywhere from 3-9" of rain today, with more to come tonight (it's 10:30 p.m. PST Thursday as I write this) and tomorrow.

Well, my daughter had a difficult-to-schedule and costly-to-miss medical appointment at 4:30 this afternoon, so around 4 p.m. off we went. The high ground clearance, wide stance, good all-weather tires, and of course quattro AWD got us there safe 'n' sound. Early, even. (Full disclosure: Growing up, and learning to drive, in Portland, Oregon, certainly honed my skills in this type of weather.)

To give you another idea of the conditions today, most school districts were closed for safety reasons; you cold-weather folks might laugh at a "rain day" but we had flash floods; overflowing streams, creeks and rivers; falling trees and power lines; more than a quarter-million people without electricity; and one school that WAS open had a tree fall on two students, one of which had to be hospitalized and treated for a broken arm.

So my hat is off to my Q5 and its Teutonic designers!

USAVAGEU

Although the damage will be significant, I'm still glad we at least got some water into the reservoirs, lakes and rivers. By no stretch is the drought over but at least we're getting something. Maybe a sign of what we can expect this winter.
Stay safe!

Dalancroft

Good to hear from you! My wife and I spent 12+ years in SD while she pursued her Ph.D. at UC-San Diego and then her post-doc at The Scripps Research Institute. A little house in Clairemont on Chateau Drive near the DMV and Home Depot for 10 years, and then just two years in University City, Bragg Street off Stresemann, near Marcy Park, before her career took us back north (we met @ Stanford and she grew up in the Bay Area).

ryanaudi

It is indeed nice to have some water back in the reservoirs. My wife's family lives in Marin County and it has been a nightmare out there. I was talking with my father in law and he was telling me how the rain washed out a decent part of Highway 1. "Raindays" are no joke up there...

dsackman

Oh yeah... Today my wife takes the Q5. I will stay home and "work out of the home office" here in Los Angeles...

USAVAGEU

It's a small California isnt it?
My wife lived in those apts on Chateau years ago. The area hasn't fared well over the years and is pretty run down these days.
And, we lived in UC as well! On Erlanger just south of Governor!
San Diego is still a great place to live, though. Wishing you all the best for a safe winter up there. I'm getting the feeling we're in for a wet one

metta

I live in the South Bay, and while we didn't get as much rain as the North Bay, we still got plenty and I have to agree that my Q5 handled the roads and freeway ponding very well.

Nice to be getting drenched after so long with pretty much nothing!

Dalancroft

That is just friction' nuts dude. 38.5 million of us, a census just came out, which means one in every nine Americans is a Cali.

That street seemed to be on the up 'n' come when we left in 2002 -- cheap interest rates, rising home values, lots of white-trucked contractors and/or DIYers. Ours was 4943 Chateau and it now looks NOTHING like we bought it in 1992. My wife's sister and BIL now live in Rancho Penny about 4 miles from the ocean so we have a place to land. You ever get up here in your P, i'll show you some awesome drives.

-Darren aka dalancroft

Coolieman1220

if you thought it was good in the rain, try it in the snow!

Dalancroft

That's my hope! We usually head to the Sierra for skiing once or twice -- three times if we're lucky -- a year.