I'm not a big fan of large numbers of diverse animals in small quarters, but I'm about ready to start building an ark. Over the past 48 hours or so, we've had lots of rain, with occasional torrential downpours and flooding. This morning's WaPo roundups are here and here.
Here's a sample:
By midnight last night, a total of 9.94 inches of rain had fallen at Reagan National Airport in the two days since midnight Saturday. That was believed to be the highest rainfall figure recorded there for any two consecutive calendar days. The 7.09 inches of rain recorded at the airport in the 24-hour period from 7 a.m. Sunday to 7 a.m. yesterday is second only to the 7.19 inches recorded when remnants of Hurricane Agnes passed through the region in June 1972.Here's a photo of a scene a dozen miles east of where I live.
Bob Reifenberger, 56, a furniture salesman, was caught in a downpour on Telegraph Road in Alexandria late Sunday. After driving off the exit ramp, he recalled yesterday, he encountered what he described as a "flash flood" -- a gush of water that forced him and people in as many as eight cars from their vehicles.
"My car just started to float away," he said, recounting by telephone how he climbed out his window. "I was hanging on to it. There were eight to 10 of us. We were stranded."
My office downtown is closed. Here's a photo of a tunnel a few blocks away from it.
Meanwhile, the daily minyan goes on. In the midst of the downpours, we still have brave souls, some of whom aren't even saying kaddish, coming out to daven. But with the rain pounding on the roof of the shul, it's a little like the movie Alien, except that here, no one can hear you daven.
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