God-fearing Canberrans give serious thought to building an Ark, for Canberra's rains begin to feel alarmingly like the ones described in the book of Genesis that inspired Noah's feat of feverish boatbuilding.
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Meanwhile Canberrans on the roads have been skirting the brinks of sudden new potholes. Yesterday The Canberra Times asked readers to nominate the most spectacular potholes encountered on their travels. The response was enormous. And as well as all the concerns for safety in the reports there was sometimes between the lines some genuine excitement of the kind one gets from birdwatching ''twitchers'' reporting glimpses of the rare Double-eyed Fig-parrot.
A rattled ''Dee'' reported that: ''I'd like to nominate the roadworks for the Kings Highway between Burbong Bridge and HQJOC - they are literally the pits! Between the unavoidable potholes and corrugations, with the addition of these latest wash-outs … motorists and their vehicles are being rattled and bounced around so much we'll all need repairs.''
An anonymous Facebook correspondent voted with feeling for the pothole at ''William Hovell near Kingsford Smith; I had just picked up a brand new car from Canberra Toyota and managed to hit the biggest one!!!!''
''Pandabrown'' had travelled the same teeth-loosening road travelled by ''Dee'' and pleaded: ''Spare a thought for those of us who travel from Bungendore to Canberra every day. Kings Highway roadworks in two places about 6 kilometres apart … Then came the rain! Resulting in potholes big enough to hide a wombat in. It's like having a deep tissue massage just getting over the potholes … Drivers are frustrated, but please be nice to the lollipop guys! They are doing a great job.''
''Lance'' told us in horror that ''Sutton Road between Yass Road and the NSW border is full of large potholes, you can't see them because of the water over the road. Worst one is probably the one at the main junction between Sutton Road and Yass Road/Fairbairn Avenue as you turn off Sutton Road towards the airport … Dangerous - YES!''
If some of yesterday's Pothole of the Year nominations sounded a little exaggerated, perhaps they were from people subconsciously channelling that legendary Simpsons episode Marge v the Monorail in which Springfield's main street becomes so neglected that whole trucks and cars disappear into its yawning potholes.
Motorists yesterday must also have glimpsed yeomanlike ACT Government Territory and Municipal Services workers filling in potholes. TAMS has had up to eight crews out filling them in. A TAMS spokesman explained to Gang-gang yesterday that while this weather brings on an epidemic of potholes, workers try to be quick to apply the ''temporary solution'' of filling the holes with a ''cold mix''. Then when the rain stops (if it ever does, and of course in Genesis it rained for 40 days and 40 nights) ''you come back to do the [permanent solution] hot mix''.
TAMS advises: ''The best way for Canberrans to report potholes is through the ACT Government's Fix My Street service at www.canberraconnect.act.gov.au or alternatively by calling Canberra Connect on 13 22 81.
Advice for rainy day
NRMA Insurance didn't have anyone available yesterday to muse about the nebulous notion of ''rain rage'', however, a spokesman did report ''recent research'' suggesting a kind of rain recklessness. It is that 15 per cent of surveyed Canberra drivers admit to the sin of having driven across roads covered by water. The spokesman urged that of course drivers should never, ever do that. ''We would always recommend drivers steer clear of flooded roads and find an alternative route,'' he counselled.
Too dam close to call
The idea of a dam wall disappearing underwater sounds surreal and like an oxymoron but eyewitnesses saw it happen yesterday when the original 1916 (since enlarged to a height of 30 metres) Cotter Dam wall sank below the rain-augmented Cotter waters. Those waters gathered behind the under-construction new Cotter Dam wall 100 metres downstream. ACTEW spokesman Chris Hare watched it all happen yesterday and agreed it was an eerie thing. ''There are just a few little bits of it [the old dam wall] visible now. If you didn't know it was there you'd think there was nothing.'' But we will see the old dam again, he promises.
''When it stops raining the water will drain away down the system and the old dam will re-emerge but of course once the new dam is finished and the waters fill in behind it you'll never see the old dam again.''
It would be nice to think, wouldn't it, that before the venerable old dam disappears for ever there might be some kind of secular ceremony thanking it for its years of service. Without the Cotter River the federal capital would never have been built at Canberra. History shows it might well be instead at Siberian and bleak Dalgety where this driving rain would be a driving blizzard.
Today shivering readers would be nominating to us at The Dalgety Times the capital city's most spectacular snowdrifts.