The Ark Arrives in Twenty Minutes

I have discussed the rain in Recife before, and I stand by what I said. But today has been ridiculous. Really it started yesterday afternoon. With the exception of the occasional respite of ten or fifteen minutes it has been raining cats and dogs for almost twenty-four hours now. Normally I have no fear of the rain, but today I delayed even taking the trash out because the result would have been equal to taking a shower with my clothes on.

Normally I am a big fan of rain on Wednesday afternoons. I play soccer every Wednesday night, and rain depresses turnout. Which means that when it rains there's a good chance that I will get to play the full ninety minutes. So, I'm happy about the rain today, but it's still over the top.

Recife has a very poor storm sewer system. When the tide is high and it rains heavily, streets all but close down as three of the four lanes become unusable. The city itself is about three or four feet above sea level, and when it rains like this people in the poorest neighborhoods sometimes lose their homes.

Fortunately, so far I haven't heard any reports of any rain-related tragedies -- my afternoon date was cancelled, but I can't call that a tragedy. I'm just glad that there's a World Cup going on to give me something to do at home while cães and gatos fall from the sky outside.

Update: O Diário de Pernambuco (South America's oldest continually published newspaper) reports that two people died as a result of yesterday's rainstorm. Not as bad as the storms two years ago, but still pretty bad.