When the Sky Forgets Its Manners

Virginia City is used to excitement. After all, it’s a town that once had Mark Twain, miners, and more saloon brawls than church picnics, but Monday, the good Lord must’ve spilled His whole weather bucket on the place at once.

First came the Zephyr. And not your regular ol’ breezy-day kind, either.

No, this was the “hold on to your hat, and if you don’t have one, hold on to your hair” variety. It blew grit and dust through the boardwalks, rearranged a few trash cans, and probably made some poor tourist rethink their decision to buy a funnel cake and walk up C Street in flip-flops.

Then the hail started. You could hear it pelting roofs like someone was shaking marbles in a coffee can.

Folks who had just gone outside to check if the wind had blown their lawn chairs away were now running back in, hands over their heads like guilty kids caught stealing apples. The town sounded like a thousand popcorn machines going off at once, only less fun and a whole lot harder on car paint.

Thunder and lightning weren’t about to be left out, either. The sky lit up like the Fourth of July, with thunder cracking loud enough to make you check if the foundation under your boots was still holding steady.

Dogs dove under beds, cats hissed at walls, and one old-timer swore the lightning lit up the outline of a miner with a pickaxe in the clouds. Though that might’ve been more the whiskey than the weather talking.

Just when everyone thought things couldn’t get any more exciting, the heavens opened up. Rain came down in buckets, and then the buckets had buckets.

Water rushed the streets like it had somewhere important to be, filling dips and hollows faster than a bartender fills a thirsty man’s mug. And wouldn’t you know it, right in the middle of it all, a water main gave up the ghost and burst wide open.

Now, I’ve always believed that when a town famous for silver mining and ghost stories has both flood water and busted pipes running at the same time, somebody up there is having a good chuckle. The Comstock Lode once poured out silver; Monday, Virginia City poured out plain old tap water, shooting skyward before rushing down the streets like it was trying to audition for white-water rafting season.

By this point, I was glued to the news, waiting for the final piece of the apocalypse. High winds, hail, thunder, lightning, floods, and a water main break—it felt like we were just one disaster short of a complete set.

Honestly, I was a little disappointed they didn’t report a tornado, too. Would’ve made the whole thing tidy, like a six-pack of weather calamities.

I even imagined the news anchor, voice full of Nevada calm, “And finally, folks, a tornado touched down, but it politely tipped its hat and moved along to Carson City.”

Of course, Virginia City folks are tougher than pine knots. After the storm let up, you could see neighbors checking in on each other, sweeping water out of storefronts, and laughing about how the town once survived fires, mines collapsing, and epidemics—so what’s a little extra water and ice from the sky?

One lady said she collected enough hail in her flowerpots to chill a case of beer. Now that’s turning lemons into lemonade—or in this case, hailstones into happy hour.

So maybe they didn’t get a tornado, but Virginia City got just about everything else. And if you ask me, that’s enough excitement for one day.

Still, I can’t help but picture that tornado somewhere off in the distance, tapping its foot and saying, “Well shoot, they didn’t invite me to the party.”

Guess there’s always next week.