Playing in Traffic, In the Rain ...

I-195 heading west into Providence
(Source)

Saturday, a wet, chilly day here in Little Rhody. Of course the day before was beautiful, but that was not the day I had to take The Missus Herself over to T.F. Green (PVD) to catch a flight to BWI down Maryland way. She's off to assist The Nuke's tribe as the adults down there are doing a lot of traveling in the next couple of weeks. As the kids can't really take care of themselves, she's off to do the helpful grandma thing.

Now d'ya see that opening photo? That's looking towards Providence, which lies between Chez Sarge and the aeroporto. Not usually a problem, up until late last year when someone discovered that the westbound portion of the Washington Bridge was, shall we say, not up to snuff, in fact it was absolutely unsafe. Here are photos of parts of the underside of that bridge -

(Source)

You can read all about it at the source under the photo.

This bridge being out of service has caused major traffic issues here in Little Rhody. The photo below shows traffic starting to pile up at the state line, some two and a half miles from the bridge. Want to go anywhere west of my AO¹, better add 30 minutes to an hour for that. I have friends who have to go that way everyday. They are pretty sick of it, I can tell you.

Looking west from the state line on I-195.
(Source)

Now here's the bridge itself, a screen capture from an RI DOT traffic cam, as are all the traffic photos above. Note that the right side is devoid of traffic and the left has traffic going both ways. Now the bridge has four lanes going both ways, right now that's down to two each way. You might well imagine what a PITA² that is during rush hour.

The Washington St. Bridge looking west.
(Source)

Here's a map of the area I had to traverse Saturday in the afternoon to deliver my better half to the airfield.

Map of the area.
(Source)

The black is the path I typically travel to get to PVD, the blue circle is the approximate location of Chez Sarge, well the outer defenses anyway. (😉) The red circle is the Washington Bridge, the green circle is the airport. As the crow flies it's roughly eight miles to the airport, via road it's about 25. Yup, that big blue body of water is the thing everyone in Little Rhody has to go around when traveling.

Unless you head south to Newport and use the Claiborne Pell Newport Bridge and then the Jamestown Verrazano Bridge to cross the Bay. Which, as fate would have it, is also experiencing "construction delays." Ah, the joys of living in a small state ...

"Uh, Sarge, you didn't mention the orange circle on the map."

"What, the orange ... Oh yes, the orange circle!"

Returning home from the airport, I was looking forward to an uneventful drive in the rain when what did I see upon getting close to the town of Warren. Why yes, traffic, backed up for a couple of miles. Absolutely wonderful.

Waze showed a police car on the road, but nothing else. What could possibly be going on?

In the photo below, which I captured to show you the extent of the traffic, I didn't notice something. If you look very, very close, you might see something out of place.

OAFS Photo

Now in this next photo, which is a little closer, the thing I couldn't quite perceive above is now pretty obvious. Smoke, and lots of it!

Now I had noticed some sort of weird looking crane or light pole with flashing lights before I saw the smoke. Instinct told me, "That ain't right."

OAFS Photo

Let's zoom in, shall we?

There's the thing with the flashing lights and the smoke is much clearer.

OAFS Photo

As I drove past, I saw that the flashing light thingee was some sort of fire department apparatus and that it was poised over a middling-sized industrial structure from which a great amount of smoke was billowing. Also some nasty looking flames were coming from an opening in the roof.

I would have taken a photo, but traffic was moving, single file, through a cordon of police and firemen, would have been a ticket at least to have attempted a photo.

What could have been a nice quiet afternoon turned out to be not so quiet after all. I'm sure the folks who own that building had a far worse day than I.

Hope no one got hurt.

As of 1715 local, some two hours after I went through the area, traffic is still backed up and I can hear police and fire department sirens constantly going off in the distance. Another traffic cam view -

Warren, RI looking north along Route 136, the fire is south of here. (Behind the camera.)
(Source)

What a day, glad that's over.

That's all from Little Rhody.

Sarge, out.

¹ Area of Operations

² Pain in the arse