The Perfect Storm

Shortly after the morning commute ended today, the snow started falling. I was in a meeting when the commisioner anounced that everyone could go home early. I got back to my desk shortly after noon and everyone else had already left. I left just after 1pm. I got to 93 pretty quickly. But 93 was slow, or at least I thought. Until I got onto 128 South. There was one point where I moved less than a mile in an hour. So, I decided to get off the highway to try and take back roads home. By that time, the backroads were no better. In fact, the back roads were so slow that I ended up taking a few turns to many and got myself into a bad situation. I was stuck again in traffic that was not moving. I was literally in still for 15 minutes just watching the snow come down before I realized what I had done. I had taken a turn into a road that went down a hill. Well, traffic in front of me was going up a hill. So, I was in a valley of sorts. And there were cars in both directions that could not make it up the hill. So, I was stuck there. We were all stuck there. Until I realized there was a side road a few cars up, where I could turn down and it had less of an incline, so I could use that road to get out of hte valley of doom. About another hour later I got back to Mall Road in Burlington. There was an 18 wheeler stuck on the hill near Border Cafe. Several other cars were stuck too. At one point I tried to help push a car, but later decided (when no one else came to help) to just try and get myself out of there. When I finally made it to the 128/3 ramp I saw why traffic was stopped on 128. There were several 18 wheelers that just could not make it up one of the hills on 128. Total nightmare. Luckily I snuck by them and made it to Route 3. Route 3 was batter - 20mph. Shortly after 6pm (5 hour commute) I made it home. In total there was 8.5 inches of snow. Amazing what a perfectly timed storm can do.