[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]
My experience in the Nor’easter hasn’t been this bad, but still, here’s an account:
About 6:15 p.m., Steve Roberts, 42, began to merge his Dodge Ram pickup onto the George Washington Parkway en route to Sterling. Two hours later, he was still waiting to merge.
“I hear there’s an accident up by the parkway and 495, and that’s blocking everything up,” said Roberts, who began his commute at the Pentagon. “I’ve got a long way before I get home.”
Denise Borders spent nearly 13 grueling hours on the Parkway – “just sitting for hours. Literally. Sitting, not moving” – without food, without a bathroom, without sleep. There were trees down and people whose cars got stuck trying to turn around and get off the parkway, Borders said. But for most of the drivers on the road, the snow was less of a problem than the complete gridlock that enveloped them.
“You saw people get out and have to relieve themselves out in the street. It was horrible,” [A.W.: Well, at least it melted some of it.] Borders said after finally arriving at her home in Reston, close to 5:30 a.m.
Power lines were down, systems were down. Oh, and I had a sh-tload of work to do, mainly on the internet. Oh, and as if all of that wasn’t bad enough, my father-in-law is in the hospital for heart issues. And I am sick. And morons were needlessly trying to go out.
Anyway, for now the storm has passed, both metaphorically and literally. I am probably not going to be able to do a lot tonight, but I will see what I can do. And Friday should be a lot better.
[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]
