The night of Thursday July 28 was nothing if not wild in Las Vegas. Anthony Curtis, who’s lived here for 43 years, says it was among the top three worst storms he’s ever experienced.
Part of the summer monsoon weather pattern, two storm cells converged, one from the east, the other from the south, and created havoc, with winds of up to 70 miles an hour and an inch of rain falling in two hours in a number of locations around the valley. Nearly two dozen major intersections were shut down due to flooding and downed trees and people had to be rescued from their underwater cars. Up to 10,000 houses lost power and all the lights on the Fremont Street Experience went out.
It rained so hard that videos show scenes we’ve never seen before. Here’s a sampling.
A typical scene at an intersection downtown.
Anthony Curtis was checking out a promotion at Atomic Liquors and this was the scene out the front door — horizontal rain. Thanks to Atomic bartender, Summer, for this footage.
A torrent pouring through one of the giant video screens in Circa’s sports book (its roof had never been tested like this before).
The Strip didn’t fare too well either. Here’s the scene at Planet Hollywood.
And the usual flood through the LINQ parking garage.
Water coming from the light fixtures at Caesars.
And of course, this being Las Vegas, some gamblers didn’t even notice. This one was playing slots in a waterfall at the Fremont.
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So to me the obvious question is: does any of that runoff make it into Lake Mead?