Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Greetings from the Isle of Nanticoke

Well, I tried.

After pumping water until 2:30 in the morning, and waking up at 5:30 in the morning to resume pumping, and continuing flood recovery and cleanup until about 12:30, I decided to take a shower and head into work...if the roads were open.

They're not.

There are several ways of getting from Nanticoke to work. You can take Main Street east out of town and pick up Route 29 South and take that to Interstate 81 North. If the exit for Route 29 is closed due to being covered in water, you can continue along to Dundee Road and follow it south to Middle Road and pick up Route 29 there - unless the intersection with Dundee Road is under water.

It is.

There are still a few other options. Several of them take you to the other side of the Susquehanna River, so we may rule all of them out. Some would involve driving west and getting creative with back roads through places even smaller than Nanticoke. The only real alternative would be to go south through Nanticoke and pick up Middle Road. This has also been known to flood, but only in extreme conditions, like we're likely to be subject to tonight when the river crests at levels never before seen, or at least not since the flooding brought on by Tropical Storm Agnes in June of 1972. (But this time it's not from a hurricane, not from a tropical storm. Just from rain. Welcome to your new climate. Don't like it? Sorry, it's not returnable.)

Tonight we're gonna party like it's 1972. The Luzerne County Commissioners have ordered evacuations of all areas affected by the Agnes floods, the worst flooding in the history of this area. Not that anyone expects this to be like that. No siree. But better safe than sorry.

And I shall be here, dealing with groundwater seepage but otherwise safe and sound, high in the hills of the Isle of Nanticoke.

3 comments:

Teigra said...

Hey, sorry, but I didn't read your actual entry. I just wanted to say, "Hey, I'm back." Sorry for the long absense, but a lot of crap has been going down. I'll try to e-mail you from my new account.

D.B. Echo said...

First Camilla, then Sammie, then Chloe, now you! Who else is coming back?

Glad to hear from you! I was just thinking about you a few minutes ago!

Anonymous said...

Well Harold, you will be glad to know that Ricky has become interested in global warming.
He informed me yesterday that if I cannot afford a hybrid...at the least I should be driving a "Ford Focus" as they are in the top 5 of fuel efficient. Hard to argue with a soon to be 9 year old, eh?
Oh, and his new fave is Leo DiCaprio. Why you ask????