Occam’s Razor

Unnatural weather

The Great Flood must have started this way: huge dark rolling clouds skittering quickly across the sky, choking off the sun, and almost hugging the terrain. While outside, I felt an overwhelming stickiness all over my body, even though the temperature was in the low 70s. I also felt vaguely apprehensive, but did not know why. Then in the distance, I heard it: the first peal of thunder. At first, the rain was almost a mist, and then it spat droplets on my windshield. The thunder grew louder and sounds came closer together. I sensed lightning, but was not sure where it was coming from. Sometimes the bolts reached the ground, and at other times, they just illuminated the clouds. The droplets turned to drops, then came closer together, and then cascaded across the pavement. They seemed alive and anxious to leave the loud and turbulent troposphere where they have been hiding. Sheets of rain followed, hitting the ground with an unnatural intensity, splattered off the pavement and recoiling inches up into the air. The gutters were quickly overwhelmed. The dry pond filled up and threatened to overflow. Images of my basement flooding coursed through my mind. I wondered if the sump pump still worked.

That’s how it started last Friday night and except for a few couple hour breaks that’s how it has been here in the metropolitan Washington area ever since. I would like to say it feels like Oregon, but Oregon does not get thunderstorms, or so a resident who lives there told me. This is the rain we needed during the spring but mostly never received. It has arrived, finally. And yes basements were flooded, although mine was not. The low spot in my backyard, however, resembles something of a pond. Birds are enjoying playing in it. All over the metropolitan area there is flooding. Trees are down, including a large elm tree on the White House grounds. Storm waters lifted cars off the pavement on Constitution Avenue. Blocks were closed to traffic until the water could recede. In the building where I worked, the water covered the cafeteria. The janitorial staff worked overtime with the wet/dry vacuums during the weekend to remove the water. The tile floor looked scuffed and damaged.

Around midnight early Saturday a huge storm hit, keeping my wife and me up half the night. Even with my ears plugged with silicone, I could not tune it out. Saturday morning found me bleary eyed in the kitchen. The storm had receded for a few hours but it was soon back. Boom. BOOM. More shake, rattle and roll. The dry pond, which had nearly drained, was now close to overflowing again. More waves of rain danced for our amusement on the pavement in front of our house.

Sunday, it was more of the same. By Sunday, it was no longer fun. In fact, what we were experienced seemed unnatural. Having lived in Florida I knew my thunderstorms. At least they went away and disappeared until late in the afternoon the following day. There was some relief. Here in Northern Virginia, there was little in the way of relief. If you had to go somewhere, a sturdy umbrella was a prerequisite.

Today at work from my fifth floor office, I found it difficult to concentrate. My eyes kept being drawn outside the window. There were more very ominous clouds in the southwest. The rain for a while had receded, but there was no sunshine, just another ominous feeling again. Boom! Flashes of lightning. I am not sure where the wind came from, but somehow the flag in front of my building was moving in the wind, despite a torrential downpour. My boss stopped by my office to marvel at this long lasting natural oddity. Was that hail? No, they were just megadrops cascading off the roof, and dancing on the concrete ledge outside my office window. Even from five floors up, you could feel the intensity of the storm.

Water cooler conversation was dominated by the weather. Some federal buildings were shutting down. You know it is serious when the Office of Personnel Management is issuing statements that it is okay for employees to take unscheduled leave. The basement of the National Archives was flooded. Local news reported numerous stories of people stuck in surging waters, only to find themselves trapped. Fortunately, I have not yet heard any story of a fatality. However, there were reports of many rescues.

It is now Monday evening. For the first time in days, the pavement is beginning to look dry. The skies do not look so ominous. There is no peal of thunder in the air. Perhaps the worst is over. On the other hand, perhaps not. More showers and thunderstorms are forecast for tonight, as well as additional localized flooding. A flood watch remains in effect through tomorrow night. Showers and thunderstorms are expected tomorrow too. It is not until Wednesday that skies are forecast to clear, at least partially. Perhaps then, our umbrellas will have a chance to dry out. Perhaps I will sleep through the night again. Perhaps I will not need to build the ark in my backyard after all.

June 26th, 2006 at 08:41pm Posted by Mark | Life 2006 | no comments

Snow what else is news?

Just for the record, it’s back! That white stuff. You know, snow!

The foolish around here thought that maybe after the blizzard a couple weeks back we were done. Since that time we’ve actually had a couple more snowfalls. Blissfully the first two didn’t amount to very much. Then there was the last couple of days. Two inches, then another four or so in the last 24 hours. This morning looked pretty nasty actually but 6 inches DOT can deal with, 18 they can’t. So the street was reasonably well plowed (but of course they never pushed the snow to the curbs … too much bother) and the big adventure was getting out of our driveway. And the main roads were spotty in places but driveable.

But of COURSE the schools were closed the last two days. Yesterday they could well have been open but the storm moved slower than expected so the two inches or so we got would have only slowed an arthritic school bus. But Wednesday night they were thinking it would move faster than it was did, so they closed schools on an expectation. Today of course schools were closed again. Terri and I made it to work okay. On the way home the snow had stopped, the roads were mostly just wet and things were just melting in general. By this evening with the sidewalks shoveled it was hard to understand what all the fuss was about this morning.

So Rosie was out of school ALL of last week and two days this week. There have been 3 or 4 other snow days during the year. And Monday school started two hours late and they sent the kids home around noon on Wednesday due to fears about that white stuff. At this rate she may be in school in July. However, our school board consists of a bunch of weenies. They won’t let it cut much into summer vacation. They’ll petition the state and the state will say, sure, why not. Who cares if an education is cut a bit short … we want to send these kids to camp instead!

Anyhow we are weary of the stuff around here. We’re just not used to this much snow. We were getting used to global warming. Now we long for Spring the way a sailor six months at sea longs for a port and a loose woman. But I have a feeling it will arrive late. There is still a lot of snow to melt first.

February 28th, 2003 at 09:15pm Posted by Mark | Life 2003 | no comments

Our snow event

The Northeast United States, as you may have heard, has been under a “snow event” lately. This blizzard dumped two feet of snow in my neighborhood and kept my family largely confined to our house for three days. Today we adults struggle back toward something called normalcy. Our daughter Rosie still has no school. Somehow I doubt (seeing the condition of the streets) that schools can possibly open tomorrow.

Our last major “snow event” (as the newspapers called it) was back in 1996. Happily this went a bit better than that event. That blizzard found me with a bad case of the flu and my daughter with a chronic ear infection and unable to see a doctor. That left my wife to do all the work, including the snow shoveling. One improvises at times like that. We reached a doctor on the telephone and found out it was okay to borrow some antibiotics from a friend down the street. The DEA wasn’t going to come after us.

This event allowed me to repay the karmic debt to my wife for not being available in 1996. It was my wife Terri’s turn this time to be miserable. Something triggered severe headaches and she was largely down for the count. That left me to tackle winter. My philosophy was “keep shoveling” so during the blizzard I was out three times clearing surfaces. Monday morning found the storm finally receding but four inches of heavy, crunchy new snow on the ground. The stuff weighed a ton and had to be broken up one square at a time. It was hard going and tedious work. However, the weight machines I have been using at the health club were a big benefit. My biceps and shoulder muscles were in great shape. They never got particularly sore.

With the driveway cleared we realized we were all dressed up but had no place to go. Tuesday morning arrived and we discovered a snowplow had opened a single lane to our subdivision. Unfortunately that was it, and there was an additional twelve feet of road I had to cut through until we could connect our driveway with the street. So like my neighbors I was out there basically shoveling the street! But at least the sun was shining. I took off my coat for a while.

There is something about a major snowstorm to both fear and admire. The fear was wondering what would happen if we got sick or injured. My wife Terri was convinced for a while she had a sinus infection. The wonder was how awesome Mother Nature can be when she wants to be, and how transformed and peaceful all can become during and after such a snowstorm.

For a while anyhow I didn’t have to worry about Code Orange. Life became a lot less complicated. Life was pretty much shoveling snow, listening to my wife complain about her headache, and in those few spare hours taking advantage of the extra time to prepare for the class I teach on Saturday. I could mostly tune out impending wars in Iraq as something surreal. This was how we survived most of human history: just getting through one day at a time using our wits. It was nice to know that through sheer human perseverance I could beat Mother Nature one more time. All I needed were a few snow shovels, a lot of time, and a huge amount of endurance.

You can find pictures of our “event” here.

Back to Code Orange.

February 19th, 2003 at 07:44am Posted by Mark | Life 2003 | no comments