I Had Planned to Post About Local Events...

We had a major rainfall last night which led to extensive flooding in the area. Being out late last night, caught in the torrential rain, I had planned on posting about the flooding and about issues concerning riparian areas.

Seeing the coverage of the massive earthquake and resultant tsunami which hit Japan has derailed my plan to post about annoying, yet ultimately trivial, local concerns. My heart goes out to the Japanese people- my brother Sweetums' wife was born and raised in the Tokyo metro area, and her family still lives there. While visiting Japan for my brother's wedding, I found the people of Japan to be extremely hospitable and unfailingly gracious. They are in my thoughts now.

Of course, the story of the nuclear power plant disaster is disquieting, as I live within an hour's drive of the Indian Point nuclear power plant, which is uncomfortably close to a fault. The fact that the GOP House has defunded NOAA is also disquieting.

Damn, a lot of my planned posts have been derailed by tragedy lately, last week I had planned on posting about the Japanese holiday Hina Matsuri, also known as Girls' Day. Again, my heart goes out to the people of Japan.

UPDATE: I spoke with my sister in law, and her family is okay- they don't have any power, but they are safe. I also want to qualify my characterization of local events as "trivial"- if your house is flooded, it's not a trivial matter. My personal experience of the local events was annoying, but I realize that other people in the NY metro area have suffered real loss with the storm.

Today, the local roads are still a mess, so I'll have to allocate more time to travel to work. I didn't make my volunteer gig this morning because extensive work was being done on the elevated tracks of the 1-train, and Broadway was closed from 242nd on down. I took one look at the traffic/transit situation, and said, "Not today, there's no way", then called my friend (Morocco's answer to George Clooney) and told him that I would be unable to attend. Now to plot out my route to work...