Blount: Water, water everywhere

By RACHEL BLOUNT, Star Tribune

Last update: August 10, 2008 - 12:04 PM

Turns out there is something the Chinese do not seem to have perfected. Drainage.

The over-the-top humidity levels gave way to a full-fledged monsoon Sunday. On the first day that everyone was not drenched in sweat, the rain took care of the job, aided by an apparent lack of storm sewers in Beijing. The streets around the Main Press Center quickly flooded in the late afternoon, and the water was ankle-deep for the entire half-block walk to the bus depot.

The last part of Sunday's rowing was called off (too much water!), postponing the Olympic debut of St. Paulites Matt Schnobrich and Micah Boyd. The poor security guys stationed along the Olympic express roadways were hit by a tidal wave every time a vehicle drove past.

Not surprisingly, the volunteers continued undaunted. A little rain -- or a whole lot -- was not going to slow them down. Many of them used their own umbrellas to protect others, and an army of people with mops wiped up what they could from every floor and entry way. Michael Phelps could not have handled the water with more precision.

But the Chinese penchant for order did create one odd moment. The bus that goes to the basketball arena also stops at the baseball stadium. Sunday night at 9 p.m., in the dark and the lightning and the pouring rain, with Kobe and LeBron about to take on Yao, the bus driver insisted we make that stop at the empty baseball facility. Needless to say, no one got out.

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