A few times a year I take the 170 mile trip to NYC to, as I put it "spend quality time with 8.3 million of my closest friends." It is a voyage with a lot of overlapping memories that weave together into a strange tale, indeed! More below the orange swirley thingy....
I take 81 south to Binghamton. 2011 Binghamton Flood on Facebook. The morning of the 2011 flood, I was driving the same route to a doctor's appointment on the South Side of Binghamton. South of the entrance I take is the section of 81 where the east side slid down into the valley, & 81 S was inconveniently closed for many, many days. [The FB and other pages were very useful for people seeking info on how to just plain get around!] It was raining so hard that morning I got off 81 at Front Street, rather than risk being hit by another vehicle in the poor visibility. I get off at that exit when I'm going to NYC. The part of 81 before Front Street is fairly flat, & I imagine the water from the Susquehanna River rising up and engulfing the low lying ares. I still get shivers when I look at the aerial photograph's, not to mention whenever we have a hard rain! The pictures at the top show how it looked around our farm after our creek left it's banks.
I just about made it home that day the water rose so fast. Manhole covers were blown, the hillside streams were running into the bowl that is the Greater Binghamton Area, my grandkids got stranded at school, work places closed, & the national news services came in so I could watch the nightmare unfold from the safety of my home.
When I went to NYC in September 2012, I took the train to the South Ferry stop, the one you see in all the pictures & videos after Superstorm Sandy. It was so beautiful inside, with all the tile work. I could just about add my flood pictures, so I won't try to add my pictures of the station. So strange to see it then, and now.
In October 2012, I didn't go far from Time Square, Bryant Park, the Library, that area. Sandy was coming. I grabbed supper at a sandwich shop a block behind the Park. "Are you ready for the storm?" the propriotor asked me. "Yes, I'll be inland. I'm just here for the day." "Where are you from?" "Binghamton." His eyebrows raised & he nodded. "Then you know. I was in South Carolina." He knew, too.
The hardest part of the drive to Binghamton is the block between North & Main Street. That is where the American Civic Association is located, & in April 2009 this happened: ACA Shootings Binghamton NY. It is always a shock again to see how close it is to Main Street. If you look left, you see the Court Street Bridge where The Weather Channel, CNN, YNN, et alia, camped out in September 2011 to watch the waters rise. If you look right, you see Binghamton HS, where my husband, a computer tech, was among those in lock down. We heard about it at work when my bosses' Mom, who lives in Puerto Rico, saw it on CNN, and called my boss because she knew he lived somewhere on Front Street. I called my husband to be sure he was OK, then called our school. I wanted the school nurse to tell our son his Dad was OK, if word got out. My daughter was working at the Library some 6 blocks from the HS, & learned about it when people called to ask if they were open. My sister was in Italy & read about it in the paper. I don't know anyone who was inside, but 2 people I know do. 1 who died, & 1 who was in hiding.
November 26th I went to NYC & helped bag "care packages" for Staten Island at the Occupy Sandy Brooklyn site for 2 hours. It was all I could muster, I was so shook by all that was happening. Just figuring out all the detours of the subway system took a precious hour, and I feared missing my bus home. I thought of going to the sandwich shop to see how they made out, but it turned cold & windy while waiting for my bus.
September 2011 was our 4th "20 year flood" since 2006. 2006 was 10 years after the prior "20 year flood." 1996, our son was stranded at his babysitters', and strangers with a truck with really big tires helped us get him out.
The Christmas Eve Webster NY shooting happened 2 blocks from where my sister & her family lived before they moved to Fairport.
What tales of serendipity & synchronicity do you have to tell?