(no subject)
I happen to live near a very flood prone river. If you as much as look at the river the wrong way, it overflows its banks and ends up blocking a bunch of roads. Naturally, the roads it likes to block the most happen to be very important roads in our area--they are the main routes for getting to and from the highway. If all the roads close, you have to either drive 20 minutes north or 20 minutes south to find an alternate route, and believe me, if that were to happen, the traffic becomes miserable. Luckily for me, the one road that is dependable is the road closest to me. Now, there is some debate among family members whether or not this road has ever had problems with flooding, but in the almost ten years that I've lived here, no matter how bad the flooding has been, this road has always remained passable. There may be ridiculous amounts of traffic, and the water may be close to the road itself, but it's the one sure-fire way to get back and forth if you need to.
About three years ago, this road was closed for almost a year so that they could replace the bridge and supposedly do a few other adjustments. When they reopened the bridge, the one thing I immediately noticed was that they had added "Road Floods" warning signs on either side of the bridge. Now, given the fact that this road has NEVER FLOODED at all while I've lived here, spending money on these signs might seem a little pointless, but to make the situation even more head scratching, the bridge area itself is not the lowest point. If the road was going to flood, it would do so about 100 yards away, around the corner (and technically on a completely different road to boot).
I mention all this because on Tuesday, two days after Irene swept by, the road was closed. Had Irene done what no other storm had managed to, and flooded out the road? As we finally managed to make our way past the detour, I could see that there was no water on the road, which began to worry me. Perhaps the bridge structure had been damaged, and they didn't notice until the water was a little lower... I began dreading another year of inconvenience if the bridge required extensive repairs.
Nope. Thanks to the signs, my attention had been looking downward, so I completely missed the large tree that had fallen and gotten caught up in the power lines. THAT was what had closed the roads, not flood waters! So the road's current streak remains unbroken--it still has not been closed for flooding in all the years I've lived here.
About three years ago, this road was closed for almost a year so that they could replace the bridge and supposedly do a few other adjustments. When they reopened the bridge, the one thing I immediately noticed was that they had added "Road Floods" warning signs on either side of the bridge. Now, given the fact that this road has NEVER FLOODED at all while I've lived here, spending money on these signs might seem a little pointless, but to make the situation even more head scratching, the bridge area itself is not the lowest point. If the road was going to flood, it would do so about 100 yards away, around the corner (and technically on a completely different road to boot).
I mention all this because on Tuesday, two days after Irene swept by, the road was closed. Had Irene done what no other storm had managed to, and flooded out the road? As we finally managed to make our way past the detour, I could see that there was no water on the road, which began to worry me. Perhaps the bridge structure had been damaged, and they didn't notice until the water was a little lower... I began dreading another year of inconvenience if the bridge required extensive repairs.
Nope. Thanks to the signs, my attention had been looking downward, so I completely missed the large tree that had fallen and gotten caught up in the power lines. THAT was what had closed the roads, not flood waters! So the road's current streak remains unbroken--it still has not been closed for flooding in all the years I've lived here.