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When's the last time it rained like this in Boston?
By adamg on Fri, 10/21/2016 - 10:25pm
When it rains, it pours, Tamas K-L shows us.
Parts of JP went dark. Also, as Marybeth reports:
Every phone at Calderwood theater went off during show to warn of flash floods.
#storrowdrive west before the #Fenway exit...straight up #flooded! @universalhub pic.twitter.com/79ypV4rq16
— Brittany Romeo (@Britt_Romeo) October 22, 2016
Meanwhile, over at the Alewife Red Line station, Claire Blechman snapped the flooding:
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Comments
Is there a word for hilarious
Is there a word for hilarious but tragic, in the vein of schadenfreude, but without malice? That's this.
Why are you happy that a bad thing happened to theatergoers?
(Or the performers). Seems like an odd group to dislike and revel in their misfortune.
Its a known fact that theatre
Its a known fact that theatre kids are the most annoying group in high school and unfortunately some of them continue the act into adulthood.
without malice
Reading is fundamental!
Kinda neat
I was in a crowded restaurant when suddenly everyone's phones went off. Interesting effect.
No one seemed to care.
Jealous
We were sitting in a restaurant and our table companion's phone went off. The phones of the people around us went off at the same time too. Then my husband reached for his phone and mumbled sadly "Hmmm. Why didn't I get an alert? I signed up for it too!"
Oh, yeah, a few of the traffic lights and streets lights were off in the South End.
Hey theatergoers
This is why they specifically ask you to turn your phone all the way off. I know.. I know.. you were so sure they meant everyone but you.. but nope, that includes you too!
Not for Emergency Alerts
Most newer phones have options to receive Emergency Alerts and/or Amber Alerts. Emergency Alerts should come through even if your phone is silenced.
If a tornado is about to hit and you have just minutes to take shelter, wouldn't you want to know?
I understand most people ignore Flash Flood or Areal Flood Warnings, but it only takes 6" of running water to knock most people off their feet. And most knuckleheads will continue to drive through flooded roads. Ask the people who had to be rescued last night.
There are levels of "Turning off your phone"
I put my Android (Nexus 5x running Nougat) on "Total silence" when I went to a movie theatre last night. The phone did not sound an alarm when it received the alert, but the alert was on the screen when I looked at the phone after the movie ended.
If you put it on "Alarms only", I think it will still sound an alarm tone when it receives one of these.
The problem with that
is if a tornado hit the movie theater during the film, you would be dead before you checked your phone. (Ah, flashbacks of the drive-in scene of Twister)
Of course, it is likely someone else had their alert audible.
I'm all for phone silence during performances, but I'll give emergency alerts some slack.
There was no reason to issue
There was no reason to issue an alert of that severity for this rainstorm.
Its impact was geographically variable
and was probably quite justifiable somewhere that you weren't. If I were in a car (or on a bike), I'd take it as a strong indication that I should avoid underpasses and other low-lying areas.
ughh
I just drove from Windsor VT back here. I left Vermont at 7ish.. I JUST got home 10:30. (that drive typically takes ~2.5 hrs)
It was absolute madness.. I stopped several times because I just could not even see the road in front of me. I-89 was terrifying in the dark. Thankfully I got behind a wrecker and followed him to 93. Which wasn't any better. He must have been the I-93 pace car as everyone was behind me and no one was passing. I think at one point we were doing 35 as no one could see the lines in the road. I finally pulled off at the rest stop for a bit..
Further down.. lots of underpasses had flooding along 93. I had a few times I had no choice than to just lay off the gas and pray I didn't get hit when I was totally whitewashed. Near 213 in Methuen where they are re-doing a bridge.. someone hydroplaned behind me. Thankfully I slowed down enough where it did nothing.
In town.. so much street flooding. The underpass near Bunker Hill College on Rutherford ave had about 6" of water in it, lots of streets are flooding.
It's nasty out there.
Wow.
Scary--glad you're home safe.
You should not have been
You should not have been driving in it! Nothing is worth a human life.
Thanks
But you had no idea why I was in Windsor :-) Maybe it was to save a life.
Truthfully.. family member is sick. Been spending alot of time going back and forth to the hospital there and Hanover. I knew it was gonna rain some.. but didn't expect it that bad. I also was in a borrowed car that *had* to be back.
When I left Windsor it was raining hard.. but it let up. By the time I got onto NH 103 outside of Sunapee, it was very bad. Very very bad. NH 103 out that way is scary. No lights. No guard rails. No nothing. Since I was about an hour into my trip, I just pressed on. Hoping it would get better.
Unfortunately it didn't. I think I drove right into that heavy rain the entire way.
No where to pull over
We were headed west through central ma and it was really bad. But stopping or even pulling over was too dangerous. We eventually waited out a squall at a gas station, but there were more to come. I got behind a truck because it was doing a good job plowing the water of the road.
Yeah
That's what I did. Once I got to where NH 103 meets I-89, I calmed my nerves and got a coffee and a donut (and got soaked) before getting on the interstate. I thought I-89 would be better.. but driving a higher speeds with extremely poor visibility was just awful. But I got behind a wrecker that I followed them in the slow lane to the rest area on 93 between Manchester and Concord. I think alot of the cars on 93 did, as I could see a line of headlights behind me and no one passing us. (and that section of 93 has 4-5 lanes)
I pulled off at the rest area so I could look at the radar.. if it was almost over, I would have just stayed at the rest area. But no luck, plus it had been a looong day (far longer than it was suppose to be, as I should have been home hours ago), and I just wanted to get home.
93 was just scary from that point on. The problem really was the visibility. You just could not see 10-15 feet in front of your car. Which is a problem in maintaining which lane you were in since it was hard to see the dotted line. On I-89 it was easier since it's two lanes, so you have a solid stripe on either lane. But on a wide road like 93, especially in those southern NH construction zones.. it was really hard maintaining which lane you were in. Lots of people taking up two lanes because it was easier to see the lane marker coming directly at you. Some people had their flashers on.
And yeah some people were pulled over. But the issue was, once you were in a lane and moving you didn't dare switch lanes in fear of hydroplaning. There was just that much water in many spots on the roadway. Plus with just plain general poor visibility, you just didn't wanna sit in a breakdown lane on a dark highway. So you didn't wanna pull over. You just pressed on.
Even when I got off the expressway at Sullivan.. parts of Sullivan were starting to flood a bit, and the underpass at BHCC. Even parts of the lower deck of the Tobin were puddly. Once I got off the highway to hit up the McD on 16 (because you know, I avoided the flats of Revere Beach Parkway figuring they would be flooded as they often do), their back parking lot (the intersection of Washington & Sagamore) was flooded, as were a few local streets as I drove home. Seems like the drainage systems had a hard time keeping up, and any area that could pool water did.