That Was Interesting

After a night that seemed way too short, my alarm went off way too early this morning.   As is my habit, I lay in bed for a couple of minutes debating whether to get up and go to work or just lay in bed.  Alas, bills still need to be paid, so up I got and began to get ready for my day.  

Just before leaving the house, I had a couple of seconds to spare, so I hopped onto Facebook to check in with my friends who live there, and that's when I saw the post from Grenada EMA.  It would seem that sometime during the night, a truck had rolled over on I-55 and spilled a bunch of hazardous material.  I'm not sure what it was the truck was carrying, but they had to call the MDOT hazmat team in to clear it up.  

As a result, the northbound land was shut down and all northbound traffic was diverted through town...

MDOT had originally said it would take until 2:00 PM to get it all cleared up, but when I got off work, and checked their FB page, they'd extended that until further notice.  I guess the rain was hampering their efforts.  I briefly considered postponing my shopping trip until tomorrow, but thought, "Nah, I'll go ahead and get it done."  And that's exactly what I did. 

The southbound lane of the highway was still supposed to be open, but I decided to drive up through town anyway, just to see what was happening there. 

It was a mess, I'm telling you.  It was so bad, they had the police out there in a couple of spots directing traffic.  Once I got past South street -- for you local folks -- it got a lot better....until I got to the other end of South street.  It was pretty congested there, even with the police directing traffic, but I made it on in to Walmart, which was miraculously almost deserted.  

I did my little bit of shopping, then because the highway was still closed, I had to take a few creative long-cuts, so to speak.  I drove all the way through town, then turned at the Cross Country Seeds -- for you local folks-- drove through the Square, then took the back way around to Air Industrial Park and made my way home from there.  

I had the thought that it probably actually took me longer to drive all that way than to just fight the traffic, but as I was turning from Riverdale Road -- for you local folks-- onto 51 Highway, I looked down at the 4-way stop, and seeing what a mess it still was down there, I decided I made the right call after all.

Sometimes it helps to know all the back roads. 

You know, for such a small town, we sure do have a lot of excitement around here. 

And that was it for today, unless you count me finally getting a new rain bucket so I can get my stock pot washed and put back into the cabinet...

UPDATE:  I've just read that they have one lane of the highway open now, but it will probably take them several days to completely clean up whatever it was that spilled.  They still haven't told us that.