On Hard Rain

The remnants of Tropical somethingorother Amelia struck Raleigh today.

It rained, hard, for hours. Between six and mid-afternoon nearly a foot of rain fell on Raleigh. Traffic snarled as roads closed. Businesses closed as their parking lots flooded. Roads were closed off as nearby creeks rose.

The trip home from work this evening took far longer than expected.

The exit off the Beltline I take–the Glenwood Avenue exit–was open, but only if I were heading south. Unfortunately, it wasn’t at all obvious that the road heading north was closed–it runs alongside a creek, one that flooded today–until well down the ramp. So, I turned south, the opposite direction from what I usually take, waited behind dozens of cars wanting to whip U-turns to head north on Glenwood, made my own U-turn, then got back onto the Beltline, so I could get home via back streets. The next exit–Six Forks Road–was horribly backed up, as was Wake Forest Road, so I finally decided to make for Capital Boulevard and take that to Millbrook.

Traffic was terrible. What was normally a fifteen minute drive home became, thanks to closed roads and clogged traffic arteries, an hour long journey.

Oh, and a tree fell against my house.

I joke about Raleigh and the monsoon season here. I never thought I’d experience it–the hard rains, the rising of the waterways–in quite such an up-close and personal way.