Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Pawn of the Weather



Haven’t blogged much lately.
Mostly because I was on vacation and had more relaxing things to do.
But it seems like all my blog entries are about the weather lately.
Next I will be blogging about my healthcare issues…yuck.

Anyway, all that snow was humiliating—meaning it made me very aware of how small and fragile I am when compared to the size and might of the planet and its weather. As we got snowed in and all our technological systems failed one by one—roads gone, telephone out, internet gone, power dead, heat and water gone—the mighty human being and our civilization gets reduced to “Can I keep my family warm and fed for the next 24 hours?” Like I said, scary and humiliating in a way. But we made it through. Incredibly brave utility workers spent all those freezing days fixing poles and wires and digging out roads so that we could get the lights back on and the heat going. And we worked hard shoveling thousands of pounds of snow off our roof and our very long driveway. But things got back to normal for a couple of days.

Now the South Pacific has sent us a huge stream of warm air and 10-inches of rain. All that snow is melting and our rivers are flooding. I barely made it home today, one of the last cars to swim across the Stillaguamish River before they closed Highway 530 and all the other routes to our house. The water on the road was up to my car door, but I crawled slowly through it and back to my warm cozy house. (That is my road in the picture above. The picture below is about 20 minutes from my house.) The roads are now closed, the river is 3 feet over its banks and not expected to crest until sometime tomorrow (Thursday).

So once again I am reduced in my movements and options by the weather. But at least I don’t live in Orting, where they are evacuating the entire town today.

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