It’s rained for several days in a row now, and it’s getting really annoying. Between torrential downpours and high winds, driving was really hard.

I had the scanner on, and it turns out that my problems (getting soaked when outside and having to drive slowly on the highway) were nothing. This is just across town, and listening to the scanner Sunday night, I heard car after car getting stuck. The police had shut the road down, but people kept going by and getting stuck. They stationed an officer to use his cruiser to block the road in addition to the barricade, but someone still got stuck. The always-professional fire dispatchers eventually resorted to putting out calls like “You’re not going to believe this… But we’ve got another one on Linden Street,” until the road was blocked off so as to make it impossible to get around the barriers. (Aside: how do you squeeze by a barricade and a cruiser parked to make the road impassible?!)

I took an earlier-than-usual train home today (read: I left work shortly after 5pm for once), and had a window seat. The train started to slow as we entered Waltham, and the conductor made an announcement that we might move very slowly through some areas due to the weather. As the conductor came by, his radio squawked, “Reduce your speed due to water levels at rail height” As we inched along apparently-submerged tracks, the train got unusually silent as everyone stared out the window. We passed an industrial road, and passed several lots of cars with water up to their tires. (That is probably sufficient to let water creep into the floor of your car, and do some damage to your engine / underbody.) Then a dumpster that had been washed away into a ditch and completely submerged. And then a landscaping company with all of their trucks sitting in several feet of water. Their garage bay was open, revealing that the garage was flooded, too. (Something that looked like smoke was inexplicably pouring out.) And then a few more lots of cars, some with engines completely submerged.

I guess I can’t complain too badly about the weather, given how some in my town have fared. But still, sleet on my walk from the train to my apartment? Was that really necessary?