It was the kind of rain that comes down so hard it can wake you from a deep sleep. All night long, you could hear the sheets of water pounding on the rooftops. Within hours, trickling streams were transformed into rushing rivers of brown mud surging out to sea.

The freak rainstorms that hit Bali over the past several days culminated late Tuesday night with some of the heaviest rainfall to hit the island in years – extremely unusual for this time of year. Early Wednesday morning, Padang locals awoke to find a river where just two days before there had been a large golden beach. The same place where hundreds of people had gathered to watch the opening ceremony just 48 hours earlier was now under several feet of turbid water.

The main event stage – a 40-by-20-foot structure – had completely washed away. The Kawasaki motorbike Rip Curl had raffled off at the opening ceremony was also nowhere to be found (and not because the winner had taken it home). Many of the banners and scaffolding are probably floating somewhere off the West Bali coast at this very moment. Perhaps some fishermen are even tricking out their boat with the event banners they found floating miles offshore.

Some of the locals spotted the motorbike's handle bars poking up out of the sand at low tide and it took six people to help dig it up. “Mortorbike is surfing!” exclaimed one local lady in the warungs, watching as people struggled to rescue the bike from the waves and incoming tide.

Meanwhile, much of the beach at Padang Padang has disappeared. The flooding ate away more than four feet of sand from the beach. Luckily, a rain-free Thursday is allowing things to dry out. Rip Curl and the ISC are now working together around the clock to get the event site up and running again. With a promising Padang swell already showing up on the charts for mid-next week, time is of the essence.