Boston & New York Travel Report

Boston & New York Travel Report

I’m back from Boston by way of New York after attending a meeting for the Inner Circle of Advocates, a national plaintiff lawyer’s professional organization. Unfortunately, I saw little of Boston because I arrived late Lightening Saturday and had meetings all day Sunday and Monday. I then left early on Tuesday to meet my wife Lita in New York. We spent Tuesday night in New York where we attended the musical Wicked and left early Wednesday for Seattle. When we left the hotel Tuesday at 6:00 a.m. there was an extraordinary downpour the likes of which I have never seen even after living in Washington my whole life. The rain was coming down in sheets of water. The streets were covered with inches of water. The drainage systems couldn’t handle the water which was coming up like fountains at various places. There was continuous thunder and lightening.

Freeway driving was next to impossible because of the rain, water on the highway, water being thrown up by other cars and the intensity of the rain which made visibility for our driver next to impossible. He exited to a side street which avoided traffic volume, but where water was running like river along the sides of the road. The volume of rainfall was incredible. Lightening strikes with thunder occurred one after another. The wipers couldn’t handle the rain hitting the windshield. It was frightening.

Driving was a hazard, but we made it to the airport. Our plane was already at the airport, but there were no flights coming in. They did board us, but we waited 2.5 hours before we could get away. Crew members were delayed trying to get to the airport and there were problems of power at the airport going out as well as other weather related problems. The storm finally passed and the sun even came out, but when it did it quickly became close to a 100 degrees outside with 90 percent humidity. There were sauna conditions inside and outside airplane which was stayed parked at the terminal. When we were airborne and finally arrived we were very happy to be in Seattle.

That night on the television news we learned how fortunate we had been to even get to the airport let alone fly. The New York storm was featured on national television and we learned that it had been a record storm dropping some three inches of rain in a very short time. The torrential downpour had sent water into the subway system and highway tunnels leaving thousands of people stranded. The subway system was shut down when rain surged through the system. The storm even involved a rare tornado which hit Brooklyn tearing off roofs and doing damage, an area we had driven though that morning. The city had virtually shut down and transportation halted. The weather service reported that the worst of the storm was between 5 and 8 a.m. – the exact time we were in the car being driven to the airport. We had a guardian angel that morning and we are very glad to be home.

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