Just a reminder: We live in the desert. They get measurable precipitation here about 10 days a year, and by “measurable” they seem to mean “enough to make my SUV dirty.”

The annual average rainfall, in Abu Dhabi, is 2-5 inches. And most of it is in February.

Unless it’s December 2009.

Then it’s time to consider collecting animals, two by two, and constructing a really, really big boat to march them into, along with a handful of your closest relatives.

The past 24 hours saw the heavens open, here in the United Arab Emirates, and instead of sun and even more sun … we got rain.

And everyone here is still agog at the turn of events. Even as they drag their soaked selves into the office, or drown their engines in the monster puddle in the road or slam into someone else on a rain-slickened road.

We had borderline-record, wrath-of-God kind of rain here. And we’re all stunned.

People here react much the way they do in Southern California when they hear predictions of rain.

Yeah. Sure. Won’t happen. It doesn’t rain here. When pigs fly. Believe it when I see it.

Then we got a bit of spotting, on Friday. The day I ran out of the office to see if it really was raining.

By Saturday afternoon, we had legit rain. Fat, constant drops that produced puddles and made driving a daredevil sport.

In the middle of the night, it poured. I was up at 3:30 a.m., and I could hear something smacking into the window. It was so loud, it made me think of sleet. Which is ridiculous, because it was still 70 degrees Fahrenheit.

Instead, it was rain, being blown sideways, slamming into the window here on the fifth floor. Beating on it.

I popped the window open a crack and looked down at the big intersection, and two cops had parked their cars in the middle of it and were directing drivers back in the direction they came. Clearly, some roads were flooded.

It rained much of the night. Paused a bit. It was during this break that we got a cab to take us down to the new apartment … and found a quarter inch of water on the floor of the place. True story. Almost the whole thing, flooded. Luckily, we had none of our own furniture or stuff in there, but the furnishings in the “furnished” apartment were suffering. The wooden bedroom set, in particular. We dropped off a couple of bags, went out, called the landlord … and were told the “watchman” would take care of it.

Then, however, it began to pour.  We were safely inside the newspaper offices when co-workers began trickling in, dripping wet. It was dark and it was raining heavily.

Then the stories started coming in. More than an inch of rain up the road in Dubai. Almost an inch of rain in Abu Dhabi. Something like four inches of rain (over three days) out in Al Ain, deeper in the desert but at some altitude.

It became The Story of the Day. People driven from their basement apartments by cascades of muddy water. Hundreds of cars destroyed in accidents on rain-slickened highways. Maybe a dozen dead.

The issues here are … there is no natural drainage, to speak of. Some years it doesn’t rain here at all, and there’s nothing even resembling the Santa Ana River ditch to carry off the water. The city is just one flat island. No elevation.

Also, we’re at about 4 feet above sea level. It’s not like stuff accelerates off toward the Gulf. If it hits a curb, it’s going to back up and stand.

And, third, little attention is paid, it now seems obvious, to drainage. Because who needs drainage, 360 days a year? Not Abu Dhabi.

So when the rain came fast and thick, we found out that many of the drains are clogged. With sand/dirt or trash. So water just backs up.

A bit more rain is forecast. But this town already is thrashed.

Our personal concern is the “flat” we’re supposed to be living in by Wednesday, latest.

Can it be mopped up? Has it been? Do we want to live in a place that probably is now a haven for some exotic forms of Arabian Peninsula mold? Where did that quarter-inch of water come from, anyway?

We’ll check out the apartment tomorrow. If it’s as bad or worse than it was this afternoon, we may have some decisions to make.  It may not be too late to back out of it. Though we have to wonder just how many places in this town are actually leakproof.

Over the past 24 hours, we’ve discovered this place may wish it had water, but it doesn’t know what to do with it.