Hi Lester,

I don't know if you remember me but we came up with the phrase "Letterman's Lane is going down the drain." I just wanted to share with you our experience during the Blenheim evacuation on Wednesday the 18th. The fire department went around to tell people that the roads will be flooding and for us to evacuate, just as planned. If the engineer's were right, we knew the dam would hold but we wanted to go through a practice run, so we put the orange tag on our door knob and off to Jefferson School we went. When we got there, we were told that 5 more families and about 50 people were expected. The Red Cross volunteers and some School and fire department heads where there also. We where treated very nicely. We hung out in the Library where we could watch TV and they fed us in the Cafeteria. As time went by it was evident that my family and I were the only ones who came to the shelter. Times Union came in and took pictures of us and Fox News interviewed us which was aired that night on the 10 o'clock news. (Later, The Red Cross told Fox News that the shelter was like a safe haven for the evacuees and was not to do interviews in the building but they could do it outside.) Everything went according to plan but, there was one thing we wished would of happen differently, We wish we were informed that we could go home at the time the roads were cleared. We found out that Rte 30 opened at 5:30 pm but we were told that we could leave at 7:00 pm. Other than that, the test run went smoothly.

A downstream dweller,

John G.