Blogocentric Formulations

Carmageddon

This weekend, they're shutting down one of the freeways in Los Angeles to do some major construction work. Granted, I-405 is reportedly the busiest freeway in the nation, and the construction they're doing involves closing a 10-mile stretch which happens to be the busiest section of said freeway (it's the section that connects the valley to the west side of Los Angeles, cutting through the Santa Monica Mountains), with some 500,000 vehicles traveling over it on an average day, but it's actually been dubbed "Carmageddon" by the media and people are positively freaking out over how bad the traffic is going to be.

They close the freeway at midnight tonight, and will reopen it at 5am on Monday morning... theoretically more than enough time to avoid any kind of actual weekday rush hour traffic, but even the mayor of Los Angeles is telling people to stay home or get out of town, avoid traveling long distances at any cost, etc. Business on the west side are closing down for the weekend; UCLA's medical center is keeping physicians overnight in nearby hotels; they're setting up emergency response teams just in case... the way the city is mobilizing, you'd swear we were headed for a zombie apocalypse or The Rapture or something.

It's just a freeway closing. For one weekend.

I was late coming into work today (got in around lunch time) and coworkers and friends that I spoke to during the drive were anxiously asking me, "My God, what's it like out there?" "Is it okay?" "How bad is it?"

I'm tempted to start telling people, "Oh yeah, it's awful. Cars abandoned on the freeway. People rioting and bodies everywhere. Someone just set a city bus on fire, and I'm pretty sure I just saw a National Guard contingent being mobilized."

Again, it's just a freeway closing. For one weekend. Take it easy, people.