The Waiting Game (or, How I Wasted An Entire Day And Got Nothing Accomplished)

Man! There has been a lot of rain lately.

So much rain, in fact, that a lot of the roads in my area have been closed due to flooding.

Which makes it so fun trying to get to work, as everyone is now bottle-necking onto the few open roads remaining.

Like this morning for instance.

We've been watching the river rise and the valley start to flood, but nothing too extreme so far. Just the same old same old.

This morning on the way out the door Hotness asked if I'd heard anything about what roads were open or closed. I didn't, so she stopped by the coffee shop to get the 'local scoop' on what's happening before going to work.

She called me at the house and told me that one of the major roads had been closed and a couple of smaller ones as well, so I might want to leave early to have time to get to work today.

No problem. Can do.

So I left earlier than normal to find myself stuck in a l-o-n-g line of cars trying to get to the one bridge out of town that was still open. Creeping along, finally got to the bridge and then trudged across the valley at 5 MPH until the road divided and everyone went their separate ways.

Got to work and called Hotness to let her know I made it in safely (I do this every day by the way) to have her tell me, "Somebody said they're closing the bridge by noon. I have to leave and get back home."

Great. I just got in to work and now I might not get home this afternoon.

Screw that! I'm going back where I can be comfortable if the valley's going to flood.

So my boss comes in to work while I'm on the phone with Hotness. "They're closing the last bridge into town. I need to leave and go back home."

"Uh.. okay then," he said.

As I'm talking to him I still have Hotness on the phone and she's relaying to me that she contacted the King County phone number to ask about the bridge closure and they said, "We'll probably be closing it by 9:00 or 10:00. It may not wait until noon."

So I turned off my work computer, got back into my car and headed home.

The water had risen higher in the hour that I last crossed it, but still not up to the road where it would pose a threat the vehicles.

No signs or anything indicating that the road would be closing, though.

I stopped at the grocery store to pick up some things (before everybody panicked and got there ahead of me) then I drove to the house. Hotness got home about 45 minutes later.

I got online to check to the flood conditions and road closures, but the bridge still hadn't been closed.

My buddy at Microsoft is on a group that contacts each other when things like this happen, and he called me to tell me that they were closing the bridge... but it didn't happen.

We called the coffee shop and they said, "Yeah, they're closing the bridge".... but it didn't happen.

Hotness called to the city hall to see what the status was. They said, "We're keeping an eye on the situation and may close it very soon".... but they still haven't.

So we've been home all day waiting for a flood that will isolate our little town, but it hasn't come to pass.

Luckily Hotness was able to work from home. I, on the other hand, don't have that option so I'm at home taking personal time for a disaster that never came to pass. (Not that I love being at work, but at least I was doing something constructive and getting paid for it).

The rain slacked off a bit today, so I imagine the river will come down some and the risk of flooding over the road will be nil by tomorrow.

Now, I have to go to work and listen to my co-workers nit-pick about how I should have waited before taking off. Yeah.... whatever. STFU.

For your viewing pleasure, here are some pics from the last time it flooded the valley and all the roads out of town were closed (back in Nov '06):