Storm Chaos
In the last six years living in DC, I’ve seen some epic storms, but none was like last night. Not even Hurricane Isabel was so bad as the storm last night. We finally lost power around 10pm. Several attempts were made by Dominion to get it back within a few minutes, but power wasn’t restored until around 4am this morning. With the Beltway closed in both directions due to a mudslide in Alexandria, DC’s going to be hurting today, especially with closures at the Federal Triangle metro in the middle of the Orange-Blue lines and Archives metro in the middle of the Yellow-Green lines, 20 minute delays on the Green-Yellow and Blue-Orange lines today may mean that today might just end up being a lost cause, commute-wise.
Personally? If you’ve got a PTO day or Personal day to spare, today’s the day to take it. OPM’s honoring Unscheduled Leave today, so don’t worry about that if you’re working for the Feds. If you are determined to go to work today, please be sure to take an umbrella, since it appears that this type of storm system maybe be in our future through Wednesday. According to Capital Weather, we might see another 3-5″ of rain by Wednesday, on top of the 5″ of rain that’s already fallen on DC this weekend… Get out the bailing buckets.
It’s not all bad news, though:
In the District, fire Capt. John Sollers reported flooding in some buildings in the 12th Street NW corridor between Pennsylvania and Constitution avenues. He said the basement of the Internal Revenue Service Building was inundated with about five feet of water.
Take heart, DC. And tell us your storm stories in the comments!
A very wierd pattern of debris in my back yard. Nothing like the epic Isabel damage, Tom – but strange nonetheless.
Other than my basement flooding, but it’s a known issue and precautions were taken throughout the day and evening, not much else was noted in Falls Church (other than the Arlington Sherriff making rounds this morning) and the roads were clear from Falls Church to Georgetown (Route 29).
On my way home last night from Dupont, I saw a car stranded in standing water on 16th Street underneath Thomas Circle. The street was blocked on either side of the circle. The water came up to the windows of the car!