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Okay, the icon only mostly works, since I was nowhere near the ocean. But we had an amazing storm yesterday evening, close to Midwest levels thunderstorm. During the evening commute, more or less; I'd have preferred it three hours later, but it's not like it was my call when it showed up. ;)
It caused lots of fuss for us because we were in the office when it really hit, about - 4 I think for where we were? Took the power out briefly, everything went to UPS, then the power came back on. UPS worked flawlessly for me, but I did hear at least one person learning that they needed a new UPS.... Ick!
One of my coworkers who starts/leaves early called a while later to report an hour-long trip to I5. Ick again! People started leaving a little early. I didn't: I was working on a change that needed to be in before this morning, and I wanted to get it done and leave the laptop at work. Besides, the weather was already bad, and the traffic was already a mess. I won't say it couldn't get worse, because of course it could, but at that point? Already doomed.
I briefly planned to take backroads - I know a perfectly good route via Sherwood - and then chickened out as I listened to reports of trees and powerlines down all over the place, as the back route in question is absolutely gorgeous...and tree-lined...in a lot of places. I would much rather take a slow but sure route, and the radio was saying trees were down in too many places to mention, but they WERE saying how slow the various freeways were or weren't and if there were blockages on them. So the slow freeway slog was at least clear.
Usually if my commute home takes forever, it's because 217 is a mess. That little 7- or 8-mile stretch of freeway can take 45 minutes when it feels like it. I was not expecting my drive to be very fun, drive-wise. I was figuring on enjoying the storm as I went, however.
As it turned out, it took me over a half hour to get TO 217. That worried me a bit, because 26 east is the second-slowest part of a bad commute normally, and I was beginning to suspect it would take me more than 45 minutes to go the length of 217. On the other hand, I wasn't getting the reported hail, just a lot of rain, and the worst of the winds didn't seem to be where I was. Sadly, the lightning was also mostly MIA - I saw maybe 4-5 strikes the whole time, although one was a glorious multi-fork.
Then I got to 217. The storm, you see, had passed north and started to lighten also. And 217 was clear, doing the speed limit or almost the speed limit, the whole length.
Took me only about an hour to get home. I got to see some of the storm (but not lightning) from my office, and a bit of the storm (including lightning, but not the heart of the storm) on my drive home. I wish the whole thing would've been a few hours later so a) everyone was mostly home safe and b) I could've enjoyed it more. But it was a glorious storm.
Of course, I wasn't one of the people near a downed tree or power line. (Or under it: a tree fell on a car on I84, but the woman inside was luckily not hurt.)
Meanwhile, Scott was home with Drew and our friend E, chatting. They sat on the front bench (under shelter of the porch) for a while watching the storm. Drew apparently enjoyed it quite a bit; I'm glad. I wish I could've watched it more, and him watching it at all, though.
It caused lots of fuss for us because we were in the office when it really hit, about - 4 I think for where we were? Took the power out briefly, everything went to UPS, then the power came back on. UPS worked flawlessly for me, but I did hear at least one person learning that they needed a new UPS.... Ick!
One of my coworkers who starts/leaves early called a while later to report an hour-long trip to I5. Ick again! People started leaving a little early. I didn't: I was working on a change that needed to be in before this morning, and I wanted to get it done and leave the laptop at work. Besides, the weather was already bad, and the traffic was already a mess. I won't say it couldn't get worse, because of course it could, but at that point? Already doomed.
I briefly planned to take backroads - I know a perfectly good route via Sherwood - and then chickened out as I listened to reports of trees and powerlines down all over the place, as the back route in question is absolutely gorgeous...and tree-lined...in a lot of places. I would much rather take a slow but sure route, and the radio was saying trees were down in too many places to mention, but they WERE saying how slow the various freeways were or weren't and if there were blockages on them. So the slow freeway slog was at least clear.
Usually if my commute home takes forever, it's because 217 is a mess. That little 7- or 8-mile stretch of freeway can take 45 minutes when it feels like it. I was not expecting my drive to be very fun, drive-wise. I was figuring on enjoying the storm as I went, however.
As it turned out, it took me over a half hour to get TO 217. That worried me a bit, because 26 east is the second-slowest part of a bad commute normally, and I was beginning to suspect it would take me more than 45 minutes to go the length of 217. On the other hand, I wasn't getting the reported hail, just a lot of rain, and the worst of the winds didn't seem to be where I was. Sadly, the lightning was also mostly MIA - I saw maybe 4-5 strikes the whole time, although one was a glorious multi-fork.
Then I got to 217. The storm, you see, had passed north and started to lighten also. And 217 was clear, doing the speed limit or almost the speed limit, the whole length.
Took me only about an hour to get home. I got to see some of the storm (but not lightning) from my office, and a bit of the storm (including lightning, but not the heart of the storm) on my drive home. I wish the whole thing would've been a few hours later so a) everyone was mostly home safe and b) I could've enjoyed it more. But it was a glorious storm.
Of course, I wasn't one of the people near a downed tree or power line. (Or under it: a tree fell on a car on I84, but the woman inside was luckily not hurt.)
Meanwhile, Scott was home with Drew and our friend E, chatting. They sat on the front bench (under shelter of the porch) for a while watching the storm. Drew apparently enjoyed it quite a bit; I'm glad. I wish I could've watched it more, and him watching it at all, though.