I haven’t paid a whole lot of attention to the hoopla around the I-5 construction closure, aside from being amused by last Monday’s round of, “Hey! Part of I-5 closed and the world didn’t even end! Let’s tear down the Viaduct, too!” I noticed this morning, though, that the Seattle Times is mentioning that the little bits of rain the last couple of days have slowed down the construction a little, but even that hasn’t destroyed the universe [Times]. And now all that’s left is to repave the freeway, which they’ll need about six rain-free hours for. (Which means they probably haven’t started yet, as it was still drizzling on my walk into the office.)

Says the Times, “If it looks like the weather is improving, the contractor will start its giant blow dryer to help dry the existing pavement and start paving sooner.” And that’s something I wouldn’t mind taking a field trip to see, because in my head there’s a construction crew standing on I-5 right now with a giant blowdryer in hand.

If all goes well the project should be done on Saturday, about five days ahead of schedule, and then everyone can unknot their underpants. On the other hand, if you really like thinking about traffic this much, the PI has their traffic blog for you to watch.