See Diva Run

We spent the weekend in Las Vegas where we participated in the Great Santa Run with some of our friends from the LVM21 Club. Several huge storms hit the Pacific Northwest while we were away, but we only knew about the storm that hit the mid west. We flew home Monday, with a layover in Portland. It was a bit rough landing in Portland, and it was raining pretty hard, but we still didn’t know what was going on. We crossed the airport to concourse A for our flight home. We were scheduled for the 2:00 p.m. flight to Seattle. Oddly, there was also a 1:58 p.m. flight, which apparently was a delayed flight from earlier in the day. We boarded a few minutes late, but were close to on time. The 1:58 flight did not board, and the cancellation of the 3:00 p.m. flight was announced before we left. Once we were on board they announced that we would be flying through a storm that carried 100 m.p.h. winds. I thought they were telling us this because they were canceling the flight, but they were only canceling the beverage service so the flight attendants could remain safely strapped into their seats. The air was much rougher for the smaller Bombardier turbo jet than it had been for the 737, but smooth flights are boring, right?

Here I am at SeaTac, thinking the adventure was over…

We waited for our checked bags, rode the shuttle to the parking lot and headed for home, thinking the adventure was over. To quote Rod Stewart, “Look how wrong you can be”. I got into the carpool lane on 405 and started working my way north. By the time we got to Redmond, even the carpool lane was stopped. We crawled north to Totem Lake before we saw the electronic sign indicating that Highway 522 (aka the road home) was closed because of water on the road. We stayed in the carpool lane and took advantage of an exit for a park and ride lot, and started heading east on surface streets. It was a crawl at first, but then we sat through several green lights without moving at all. Finally we aborted our plan to turn left, and made a right instead. We worked our way down the hill toward my husband’s old office, but the intersection was flooded and we ended up heading in the opposite direction. Soon we were right back at the park and ride lot. This time we headed west, away from home, but also away from all of the traffic and trouble. We continued west, and then north, working our way to Bothell, where 522 was open. We assumed the problem was with the 405/522 interchange. Queue up the Rod Stewart again. We were able to head east on 522, but shortly before Woodinville the State Patrol had the road closed and we were directed to an offramp. We were only allowed to head north, so we did. We continued moving north, finding every intersection had the eastbound road closed. At one intersection we drove through about 8 inches of standing water, but we kept going. Finally we reached an intersection where the eastbound route was open. We weren’t sure what to expect as we headed north because we live on the north side of the Snohomish River which tends to flood when other local rivers flood, and we still didn’t know what was going on. The road was open and dry, and though it had taken hours to get there, we were able to pick Jasmine up before the kennel closed for the night.

Today I learned that 3.77 inches of rain fell yesterday, causing havoc all over western Washington. We were very lucky to get a flight from Portland, because the freeway and rail lines are under water. Many roads remain closed, and many people are isolated by flooding. Many roads have been undermined, and many homes and businesses have been destroyed. I feel so sorry for the people who have lost everything, but I am so relieved to be home.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 4th, 2007 at 8:35 pm and is filed under Life in General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.