Snan Yatra was at the temple 11 am Sunday but we couldn’t make it on time because of flooding. After a rainy week, Saturday night there was a lot of rain so the ground was saturated. Sunday morning we had a thunder storm, the heavy duty kind referred to as a gully washer. The ground was soaked so it had nowhere to go but off the hillsides all at once.

The rain was so heavy my gutters couldn’t handle it — it was going off the side of the house in sheets. I ended up with some water in my basement because the drains couldn’t handle the flow. The water rushing off the ridge was intense, and lots of driveways along the ridge ended up with alluvial deposits of gravel at their base. The side runs were fast and full.

There is small bottom behind the barn at Bahulaban I may in the future oversee turned into a garden. Although I have never seen this bottom flood before now I have. It has me thinking about a levee.

Behind the old barn at Bahulaban, the culvert under the road couldn’t handle the volume and the water backed up into a temporary lake. I need to check that debris hasn’t collected there and choked the culvert making another flood more possible in the future.

The backed up water rose to the level of the road and crossed it. This is the first time in 34 years in New Vrindaban that I have ever seen the water cross the road. Which isn’t to say it has never happened, as it only did it for about 30 minutes and it may have in the past while I was hunkered down someplace and cleared up before I saw it, but I have also never heard anyone else say they have seen overflood and that is something people would talk about.

While if it were a life or death situation I would have crossed the flooding, conventional wisdom is you should NEVER drive through moving water. Lots of people die every year doing it because the power of flowing water can be very deceptive and it will sweep away cars.

Pracetas was parked in front of the art studio which is uphill from the old barn on a mostly dirt road. The water coming off the ridge side swept down the road, creating deep gullies and pushed his car into one on the side of the road so it was stuck when he went to get it. Flowing water had moved his car. It can happen.

We just turned around and went home, going to the temple later. We caught the last bit of the bathing ceremony and saw the Deities carried away. The only flood there would have been the flood of devotion by the attendees.