One of my hobbies is wandering onto highways.
This morning, severe weather elected to push through the Metroplex right at the height of morning drive-time. The National Weather Service has an incredibly helpful chat program, so I was able to get reports on where the storm was the worst. One of those areas was Irving, where heavy rain had shut down Highway 183.
This set me up for a great morning of microphone shovin’, and right on the freeway, no less!
One lane of traffic is now getting through westbound 183 just past Bush Turnpike. Traffic is backed up to about Story Rd. @krldtraffic will get you around it, and I’ll have latest numbers of high water calls at 9:30 on @KRLD. pic.twitter.com/s9UZs0T8UO
— Alan Scaia (@scaia) June 23, 2020
This started when I lived in Portland. One afternoon, we had some heavy rain, and the reporters fanned out to find spots where the flooding was causing damage. Traffic was backed up on Highway 217. Turns out the iconic West Slope area was flooding because the water was flowing down the slope and pooling on the highway.
“I’m fixin’ to talk to some of these folks, see what they’re up to,” I explained to myself.
I stopped in a parking lot at one of the exits [I’m pretty sure a spot that is now occupied by the Electric Lettuce Dispensary. Electric Lettuce Dispensary. Which is exactly what I’d assume would be the name of a popular dispensary in Oregon.] and decided to wander down the onramp and up to cars.
No one was moving, after all, so I was sure to have a captive audience. Also, many of them were bored, so they rolled down their windows right away to explain how they felt about being parked on an unpassable highway [they were opposed].
That became my move. This may come as a shock, but people listen to their radio in the car, so a lot of the pictures on my phone are me skulking around in the dead of night along the sides of interstates and freeways.
For journalism students, here’s my strategy: I drive around and look for where the photographers from the TV stations have already pulled off. You might see a TV tripod in one of those pictures above.
The night of this wrong-way crash on 635, for instance, I pulled off near the TV trucks. They had staked out a spot under an overpass to keep out of the rain.
In the other picture above, a gentleman found it appropriate to steal a police car [a police car] and take it for a spin. In that case, I stopped on the road beneath where he crashed and summited the berm.
Police have gotten a bad rap lately, but the departments in the Metroplex work well with the media. They’ll tell you where you can and can’t go when you wander up various berms. They’ll also meet you in the median for interviews after they’re done investigating. That’s another one for the TV photographers: they need a good background.
Fun fact: Tigard is the name of a town along 217. When I first moved to SuperOregon and was doing sports one morning, I went on and on about how Hermiston had beaten “Tigg-ard.” Toward the end of the morning, the host came in and explained it’s pronounced, “Tie-gard.” I asked why he hadn’t said anything before. He said he thought it was funny, and everyone else in Hermiston would think it was funny hearing the guy from the Northeast try to pronounce towns.
Some of my associates here in the Metroplex are texting about a road trip to Oregon presently. So expect more coverage of Oregon in the blog later this week.
