the Great Flood of 2010

I don't care if it's not official yet--I'm declaring this one Great anyway. It's been raining for three days, and while I haven't yet heard any official totals, what can be seen with the naked eye is pretty darn impressive. Entire branches of the T system were unable to run, and buses were trying to shuttle people in to work. It's amazing that in a culture so accepting of snow days we can't call a "flood day" when things are so bad. The trains have just as much trouble in current conditions as in heavy snow, and yet everyone is expected to slog through and get to work. About half of my photo archives class was absent today because they either couldn't make it into town or they had to stay home to deal with flooded basements.

I didn't leave campus at all yesterday, so I missed some of the excitement, but the news this morning was ridiculous. The above ground stops of the Green Line weren't running for several hours, and the Fenway T stop was completely shut down. They even put up a dam of sandbags to keep the muddy river creek (which crested at 15' above it's usual level) from sending water down into the subway tunnels. Below is a photograph of the barricade from the MBTA Flickr account.


This next picture (also courtesy the MBTA) is of a section of track on the Green Line between Chestnut Hill and Newton Centre that completely lost its support when a sinkhole opened underneath it. Read the full details here.


This next one I took myself when Christina and I wandered over to the park after class. Our usual route to the Longwood T stop is completely underwater. The trains are running again now, as the train in the back of the photo shows, but you have to take a much longer route to get to the station. Going on this photo expedition, I learned my rain boots are no longer perfectly waterproof. Sad day. Oh, and apparently the Charles River is overflowing its banks as well.


And the worst part? Metro Boston got off easy compared to a lot of other towns in the area. Allan Parish was right, a little rain never hurt anybody "but a lot can kill you." Let's pray the rain really does stop tomorrow so we can start putting things back together.

-Kim

And just for the sake of irony, I have one more thing to share. As I was writing this my iTunes was on shuffle, and several water related songs came up. But the one that really made me laugh was "Flood" by Jars of Clay. In case you don't know the words, here they are. Now you can all share in the irony.

"Flood"

Rain, rain on my face
It hasn't stopped raining for days
My world is a flood
Slowly I become one with the mud

Chorus:
But if I can't swim after forty days
And my mind is crushed by the thrashing waves
Lift me up so high that I cannot fall
Lift me up
Lift me up - when I'm falling
Lift me up - I'm weak and I'm dying
Lift me up - I need you to hold me
Lift me up - Keep me from drowning again

Downpour on my soul
Splashing in the ocean, I'm losing control
Dark sky all around
I can't feel my feet touching the ground

[Chorus]

Calm the storms that drench my eyes
Dry the streams still flowing
Cast down all the waves of sin
And guilt that overthrow me

[Chorus]

Lift me up - when I'm falling
Lift me up - I'm weak and I'm dying
Lift me up - I need you to hold me
Lift me up - Keep me from drowning again

parade fail

March 14 is Pi Day. This year, it was also the date of the annual South Boston St. Patrick's Day Parade. Unfortunately, this weekend a Nor'easter blew through New England. The rain was pouring down all day, and the wind made it come horizontally. And yet the parade went on. Here's a picture from the boston.com website of what the conditions were like:


After much deliberation, my friends and I decided that rather than get soaked and risk getting sick at possibly the most inopportune time of the semester, we would stay in and watch it on TV. However, after much painstaking research and phone calls to both the Mayor's hotline (the guy who answered the phone was rather rude when he told me they had nothing to do with the parade, in spite of the fact that boston.com advertised that we could phone the hotline for news of the parade) and the official parade phone number, we learned that the only station that would be broadcasting the parade was New England Cable News (NECN), which is not included in the Simmons dorm cable package.

With that sad discovery, we decided to make the day as Irish as we could to make up for it. After much deliberation and searching through the available movies on Netflix instant download for any related to or filmed in Ireland, we decided on one that Sara owns, "The Secret of Roan Inish." It was a very fun movie full of adorable accents and beautiful music. Here we are getting ready to enjoy the show, still decked out in our very green finery:


I just hope that there will still be some Irish fun to be had on the holiday itself and that Boston did not expend all its fervor on one dreary, blustery parade day.

-Kim