An imperfect storm

Operation Stack is now making the national news but I'm not convinced the full impact is being shown. At its height Stack has more than 4,000 lorries parked on the motorway (I think the number is around 4,600). All non-HGV traffic is pushed onto the A20 which is a lovely little road - when it's clear - it winds along from Maidstone to Ashford and is single-track each way all bar a few hundred yards towards one of the roundabouts near Charing. Obviously this cannot cope with any great volume of traffic so it grinds to a halt very quickly at the best of times but today is the start of the holiday rush to the Channel ports and the Tunnel; Dover, Folkestone and Cheriton are all served by the M20/A20. 

The other way to get to Dover from the west is the M2 and A2 and most days this week there has been a major accident somewhere on the M2 causing delays. Because traffic is like water it tries to find other ways to get where it wishes to be. This means that local routes also get clogged - I've know days where it's taken an hour to cross Maidstone because of Stack and Maidstone isn't a bustling metropolis, it's a smallish town.

Added to all this we had the mother and father of storms last night and everywhere is soaked.

This is really a long way of justifying my not doing anything much today - just some reading and a bit of writing - but now I have reasons I need not feel so guilty :-)