The Morning After

Well, yesterday's rainstorm came and went without incident - at least in my neck of the woods, there was no incident.  But it was touch and go there for awhile.  I actually had to go out last night to cover an event for one of the hyperlocal news sites I write for.  I wasn't prepared to try and get out of it, because I'd had to tell my editor earlier in the month that I couldn't do another assignment I'd already gotten when something came up, and so I went last night in good faith,  thinking that the event in question would be sparsely attended.

In fact it was very well -attended  - so much so that I had to park a block away from the venue . . . on a narrow side street . . . on a hill . . . in one of those fancy "houses in a park"-type communities where there were gutters instead of curbs . . . and the gutters were made of cobblestones . . . and the street was so narrow that I had to park with half of my car in the gutter . . . during a rainstorm.

And that wasn't the worst of it.  I had to drive through standing water on the way home because I hadn't been able to see it coming due to  poor visibility.  It was a miracle that  I got home safely and was able to write my article and get it in before 11 PM.  I was sure that the electricity was going to go out.      

It didn't, despite the wind and heavy rain, and although the rain has calmed down somewhat where I live, the wind could pick up again.  Windy, not wet, conditions caused the last power failure in my house two weeks ago . . . while I was writing an article for one of the hyperlocal sites I work for.   But at least it only went off then for two hours, not three days like during the October snowstorm.

Speaking of which . . ..  This same storm that dumped rain along the Northeast Corridor is dumping snow in the Alleghenies.  Much of West Virginia and western portions of New York and Pennsylvania are expected to get up to a foot of snow or more,  with the possibility for widespread blackouts as a result of tree limbs weighed down by snow on leaves not having fallen themselves yet  . . . because, this time, they're leaves that have just sprouted.  I don't remember if this region was also affected by the October snowstorm that turned New Jersey and Connecticut into wastelands, but if it wasn't, the folks out there are certainly going to find out just how bad it was for the coast.

Republicans in Congress, meanwhile, insist that climate change is a hoax.  I don't believe that they're only saying this because the oil and gas lobbies pay them to say it.  I think they really believe it . . . which is why someone ought to knock some sense into the GOP's hollow heads.