Rising Tides

Nature isn't playing nice right now. My days at work consumed with planning the closure of our sister casino up north. A pending flood. The Old Man. Big Muddy. The Mighty Mississippi River. Rapidly approaching a historic crescendo.

Forty four feet this morning. At forty seven the river will be inside the casino. Expected high? Forty eight feet within the next six days. Highest recorded level? Forty eight point seven feet. We'll be within inches of a new record.

The engineers are building layers of defensive rings around the entire property. Massive, car-sized sandbags providing some initial hope. Water-filled, plastic barriers providing more. In the meanwhile, we geeks move mailboxes from one site to another. Copy flattened databases. Power down the non-essential stuff now. Prepare to offline the critical systems tomorrow.

My cohorts up there shaking like scared kitten. None of them have ever shut down a property. Easier than they think. Much. Turning out the lights is the fun part. Bringing everything back to life could prove challenging.

But we'll cross that bridge when we get there. But first we have to go dark. And flee the rising tides.