Venting about Fording the River

Fording the River: A recipe for turning a 15 minute drive into 50.

1. Work 12 miles from where you live and have to cross a major river to get there and back.

2. Arrange a huge wreck, so large it completely shuts down 4 miles of the I-5 corridor for several hours.

3. Don't put out any signs telling drivers about viable alternate routes or lengths of wait times.

4. Don't have any local radio stations explain the situation or guide drivers to alternate routes.


Tonight I worked late.

Tomorrow is one of our busiest days of the summer and several of our operations staff members were staying late to prepare. I decided to stay with them and get caught up on some work. It was a productive and fun evening. Around 9:15 someone brought in pizza and we all took a break to eat and chat.

Around 10 pm people started leaving. The last of us walked out the door at 11 pm (I don't have to be back until 10 am, so it's not that bad). I walked a couple of blocks to my car and got on the road about 11:10 pm. I hopped on I-5, expecting it to be pretty empty in the middle of the night. It was . . . For about 3 miles and then I could see that traffic ahead was totally stopped. I was in the far left lane and had to fenagle my way across three lanes of traffic, but managed to get off at the last exit before I got trapped with the stopped cars.

This is my normal commute to and from work.


As I crossed over the freeway I looked north and saw lots of emrgency vehicle flashing lights. I figured there had been a wreck. At the next possible entrance I could see it was also blocked by police, so I took surface streets as far as I could before I knew I would have to get on I-5 to cross the Columbia River. But when I tried to get on I-5 at Delta Park, the last possible exit/entrance before water, I was dismayed to see the same flashing lights.

Now I was annoyed. How is it that something happened, significant enough to block off 4 miles of freeway, and O-DOT had posted no signs, no readerboards to tell me, the driver, that the Interstate Bridge, my link to my homeland, was completely blocked off and I could not get home that way? Because now I had wasted 15 minutes driving north northwest on surface streets when I could have been driving northeast and been to I-205 by then.




This was my convoluted commute home last night.


I'm also disappointed in one of my favorite radio stations. They are usually really good at giving traffic reports, especially when there is something unusual going on. But not one peep came over their airways: Not during the 20 more minutes of surface streets to get from Delta Park across town to I-205 nor even during the 15 minutes it took me to get home once I got on I-205.

I do realize there are worse things than taking an extra 35 minutes to ford the river and get home. In fact, some of you dear friends are dealing with hurts and situations far greater than my little rant. I just think that in today's age of technological saavy, something could have been done to avoid the extra 35 minutes, not to mention the extra miles and lower in-town mpg I put on my car--gas is $4.00 a gallon.

Thanks for reading anyway. Typing has helped me unwind the energy coil that was created on my 50 minute journey . . . I might actually be able to go to sleep now :)

Yep, I think I drifted off there . . . Good . . . Good night!