See aerial footage of storm’s wrath on Apple Campus construction

The Apple Campus 2’s fated year of 2017 is here, when the last pane of glass, last solar panel, and final finishing touch will all eventually go onto the Norman Foster-designed mega complex in Cupertino. Think of it as the year of Apple’s second coming.

And how does 2017 greet the landmark-to-be? With torrential rain, of course, as South Bay drone videographer Matthew Roberts captured in back-to-back videos over the course of two weeks.

January’s storms hit the peninsula as hard as anywhere, briefly turning the Apple affair into a soggy circle of muck hemmed in by celebrity architecture:

Of course, a little mud and rain are to be expected on any big construction project, so it’s hardly a disaster.

But the aesthetic effect on the ongoing landscaping efforts (a Herculean task in and of themselves, as the designs and renderings of the finished building call for it to be all but covered in trees) wasn’t flattering. The interior of the ring ended up looking like a far less appetizing version of Willy Wonka’s chocolate river.

Add to that the bareness of the winter trees being planted and the winter imagery from the construction site begins to look startlingly bleak.

In a follow-up pass from this weekend the waters have still not yet entirely subsided, but everything looks a bit more ordered and less apocalyptic:

Meanwhile, the formerly majestic cranes have been replaced by more humble lifts, as windows, awnings, and finishing touches go onto the curving exterior. And Roberts observes that contractors have even begun using the finished garage as, well, a garage.

Aerial videos of the construction site accrued nearly a quarter million YouTube views across dozens of videos just in January of 2017—including this serendipitous view of the project from 10,000 feet up, taken from the window of a jet departing San Jose Airport:

• Apple Campus, January 2017 [YouTube]
• Apple Campus, February 2017 [YouTube]
• Apple Campus From 10,000 Feet [YouTube]