Sleepless Hours

(Image from the web)

No, the photo above is not from Houston, but from Mexico City last night.  Although it cannot begin to compare to the death and destruction left by Hurricane Harvey in Texas, Mexico City is suffering the effects of Tropical Storm Lidia off Mexico's Pacific coast.

Yesterday was a gray, dreary day all day long with intermittent rain and drizzle.  Although it did not rain that much here at the apartment, late afternoon saw heavy downpours in some parts of the city.  When Alejandro left the office, traffic was worse than usual, and there was standing water on many of the streets.  He arrived here at the apartment, and we had a late supper. 

Around 9:00 PM he got a phone call from home.  One of his aunts has been visiting from out of town.  Due to a family emergency, she wanted to get home as soon as possible, and she wanted Alejandro to drive her to the bus terminal.  Alejandro asked me if I wanted to come along, and I said yes.  Within a few minutes we were in his car.  Although it was no longer raining, very quickly we found that traffic everywhere was still moving at a snail's pace.  What we did not know at that point was that many major arteries, including the "circuito interior", that passes by the airport, were closed due to flooding.  The "circuito interior" was the route that we needed to take to get to his parents' home.  

Alejandro tried to use his GPS to find us another route.  Even side streets were jammed with traffic since everyone else was trying to find a way around the flooding.  At one point I think we spent a half hour just to travel a couple blocks.  In many places the water on the streets was so deep that I was afraid that we would not get through.  In other places the roads were closed, and we had to detour again.  We were traveling streets that even Alejandro did not know, and going through neighborhoods that were not the best part of town.  We finally arrived at his parents' house at 1:00 AM after four hours of driving!

His aunt was waiting for us.  Fortunately the bus station was not too far away, and the streets were not bad in that area (although we saw that the "Gran Canal" had overflowed its banks, and that Gran Canal Avenue was impassable.  We got to the bus station in good time, but we found out that the next bus to take his aunt home did not leave until 5:30 AM.  She bought her ticket and said that we could just leave her there, but there was no way that we were going to leave her by herself at the bus station.  So we all drove back to his parents' house and caught a couple hours of sleep before taking her back to catch her bus.

We saw his aunt off, and then headed to the apartment.  By this time the morning rush hour had begun, and it was slow going in some spots.  We finally arrived at the apartment around 7 AM, ten hours after we left.

The flooding had not only closed many roads.  The airport was shut down, several subway lines were closed, and in a few areas there were flooded buildings.  It is fortunate that we had never reached the "circuito interior".  We heard on the radio as we were heading back to the apartment that the drivers that got stuck on that thoroughfare were still stranded there.  

As I write this, the skies are still cloudy, but it is not raining.  However, the forecast calls for more heavy rains this afternoon.  Rush hour will once again be a nightmare.