Another day, another once-every-50-years flood.
It wasn't bad for me this time. I expect it will be worse on the way home as the runoff into the rivers continues, but as for right now. Insert the sigh of relief here.
Jen's office building management had recommended that their tenants voluntarily evacuate at around 3:30 yesterday. Her company decided to stick it out. She told me that the parking lot was underwater and that cars were getting stuck. When I got there at 6:20pm or so there was no sign of any flooding. The parking lot was wet and had many a puddle, but there was no flooding. Apparently it had drained out. There was evidence of other similar happenings on the way home too. We ended up on Tower Farm Road in Billerica at one point and there were barrels out with signs warning that the road was flooded. It wasn't. It was actually in better shape than a lot of other roads we took. Again, it must have drained off somewhere.
Fortuitous indeed.
Speaking of good fortune, the basement is dry. When I got up yesterday morning I planned to go into the cellar and move all of the very expensive, electric musical instruments and related equipment off of the floor. We were running a little late though (my fault) and I forgot to do it. As the day wore on and I started hearing about more and more flooded basements I began to get paranoid (something I'm very good at). When we got home I went down stairs and fortunately everything was dry. Needless to say, the two Gibsons are off the floor now. I gave a check this morning too and we are still dry. I think our back yard slopes away from the house a little and that has to be helping things. Thank you, back yard. I've said this before, but when Thanksgiving comes around later this year could you please remind me to remember to say that I am thankful for a dry cellar?
How are the roads today you ask? Not bad for me. I avoided Shawsheen Street at route 38 in Tewksbury. Jen gave it a shot and it was open, but the water was so deep it was hitting the under carriage of most of the cars in front of her so she turned off at the last second. Concord Road in Bedford has a few spots to either side that look like they are ready to start spilling over on the pavement. In Concord, Cambridge Turnpike and Hawthorn Street were both closed again. That spilled some traffic onto my Walden Pond route, but not too much. I spent about 8 minutes at the light trying to cross route 2 onto route 126, but that happens occasionally in good weather too. Route 117 in Lincoln is still open this morning, but that road wasn't closed until after the rain stopped last time so I don't know if that means anything. Route 20 in Wayland is closed again where it crosses routes 27 and 126. That had already been blocked off last night.
So the situation on the roads in my limited view is not great but still pretty good. I know things are bad near my sister's house as route 119 has been closed for a while due to a collapsed culvert. There is a pond that's being pumped out before it floods... everything, I guess. There are some bad spots out there, I just don't see them with my own eyes when I drive to work.
I know of a (current) total of four friends/family members/co-workers who have flooded basements right now. Pumps are keeping up in some cases but not really in others. There were a few places on the drive home last night where entire neighborhoods worth of houses had hoses running from their basements to the street and water was gushing out.
The good news here is that today is the last day of March, so this terribly rain soaked month is coming to an end. The bad news is that tomorrow is the first day of April. April showers bring May flowers and all of that. If that's true, what do March floods bring?
Something to think about.
Stay dry people.
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