Regular readers of this blog may already know that I enjoy shooting video and taking photographs of storms. Such was the case early Sunday night when I just managed to catch a small rockslide on videotape.
It happened on Catalina Highway outside of Tucson just under a tenth of a mile north of milepost 4.
A nice storm had just begun to unleash rain, lightning and thunder in the early evening. Typical of the Monsoon, partly sunny skies had finally surrendered to dark clouds in what seemed like an instant.
Just moments before the rockslide, the sky turned a vibrant orange, casting the same hue upon the mountains surrounding this stretch of road.
I’ve decided to make a story out of the video I shot last night, showing the simple chain of events as they unfolded.
There’s nothing terribly special about this rockslide. They’re common in the Catalinas. And this one is small, just managing to stay off of the nearby traffic lane.
To my knowledge, capturing a naturally occurring slide event on video is not common here. And as you’ll see in the video, I almost missed it…
[wpvideo K6emhkNd]
Great video, Mark! I’m sure glad the rock landed where it did! Just curious, what did they say at the Sheriff’s Department when you called?
Thank you, Tami. The dispatcher told me a deputy would go to the scene to check it out.
I actually witnessed three minor slides at that specific location. The last occurred as I drove away/past it. At that moment, a bit of gravel came sliding down.
By itself, it wasn’t much, at all. And I attempted to report the proper context of what I had seen. I wouldn’t want this call trumping a more significant request for service.
My primary concern was the instability of the rock in that location. It’s one of those points that is very close to the road. And because I witnessed three small events, I thought it should be checked-out by someone with more expertise than me.
If a larger event had happened at that spot overnight, possibly hurting someone, I’d have felt pretty lousy if I had never called-in what I had noticed.