Floods

I was scheduled to work at 5pm yesterday. So at about 4:58 I pulled up to the corner of Main and Mason, about 1/4 mile up from Pizza Hut, and traffic was backed up from that light all the way to the next light up on Mason. Gah. But I happened to be about middle of the pack, right next to the Walgreen's parking lot at the corner. So I quickly turned in the Mason Street entrance, cut through and noticed as I pulled out the Main Street entrance that traffic was backed up because of a police barricade blocking Main Street. Oops, I looked down the road towards Pizza Hut and realized they were barricading off Main Street because it was flooded out about 1/2 way between the corner and Pizza Hut.

There were two cars right at the driveway entrance to Pizza Hut submerged up over their hoods. A river flowed across the parking lot and flowed away down Main Street. There was no way I could drive there. I literally would have had to swim to the store.

So instead, I returned home, called in and explained that I wasn't there yet because I couldn't get there. "Don't worry about it," said the manager on duty, "We're closing for the night. Just waiting for the water to subside so we can clean up before heading out."

This morning I was scheduled to work 10:30AM. When I arrived, there were puddles all over the parking lot, debris all over the property. Two managers had arrived earlier in the morning to continue cleaning everything up. Dine-in remained closed until about 5PM, and the morning was real slow, so I spent most of my time helping to clean things up until deliveries started coming in regularly about 2PM.

Of course we talked about what it had been like at the store yesterday. Apparently there was about 4 inches of standing water throughout. One of our waitstaff tried to drive in when the water was only 1/2 way up her car door, without considering that our parking lot was a depression. As soon as she started to pull in, her car sank. One of the drivers swam out to help her out of the car. By the time she had climbed out the window, water was about up to the cars roof. One of the customer's cars was entirely submerged.

It was crazy.