Team Wet Dog

storm coming?

In a possibly amazing show of irony, my company's main office, located in Florida, evacuated for a day as the awesome force of Tropical Storm Ernesto crashed ashore with all the power of a cricket.

An irritable cricket, but a cricket none-the-less.

There are now sandbags piled outside the metro stations in D.C., and officials say they are expecting a repeat of the flooding we had in June when strong storms hit the area.

Now, obviously this could also be much ado about nothing. And certainly the irony is not a reflection on the company I work for, which simply took some good precautions (and did intermittently lose power at the office, I heard).

But still, it's a little funny considering the lengths the company went to (they migrated the email servers to a backup in Pennsylvania, but now can't seem to get things back to normal). And many, many meetings are held in advance of these storms.

Unfortunately, what's not funny is the affect that flooding can have in Washington. Because we have so many basement apartments (I used to live in one which flooded three times in three years), strong rain can do real damage. And frankly, much of the city is low-income, which seems to mean the potential for even more damage.

So here's hoping this, also, is largely a false alarm. I'm hoping that the remains of this tropical depression simply dissipate and we get nothing more than a few showers.

Perhaps D.C. should evacuate our office. I could stay home, keep close watch on my couch and television, stock up on red wine and bourbon, cook some steaks and ride out the storm.

(On a side note, I recently started posting food-stuff at a new web site, TranscendentalSandwich.com ... Basically D.C. restaurant reviews and some other food thoughts...)

— Robert

(9/1/06) 
(back, next)