OK, this has gone on long enough.
I’ve been working for the Federal government, and living on the east side of the DC area, for 13 years now. And from the very beginning, it’s been clear that, in deciding whether to close the government, or grant lesser remedies like unscheduled leave or telework, OPM essentially ignores everything that’s happening on the east side of the DC area.
In the fall of 1998, when I had no leave saved up, I drove in to work through gale-force winds from a tropical storm that hammered the east side of the area, but left Fairfax and Montgomery counties basically untouched, because OPM said we were open. In the winter of 2000, with 6 inches of snow on my front steps, OPM said we were open. (They changed their tune later in the morning when the storm moved west, and Fairfax and Montgomery counties got their fair share.) And so forth and so on.
Fast-forward to last Monday, August 29, when hundreds of thousands of people, overwhelmingly on the east side of the area, were without power in the wake of Hurricane Irene, and with all sorts of damage (or, if nothing else, some pretty heavy cleanup to do) from fallen trees and branches. Any unscheduled leave? Nope.
And finally, today. The east side of the DC area got hit with massive flooding. Major roads were turned into lakes, and bridges that carried other major roads over rivers such as the Patuxent were under water. People drove for 2 hours to try to get to work, then gave up, turned around, and headed for home. OPM was oblivious. Sure, the government was open - I expected that. But unscheduled leave? No. Unscheduled telework? No to that, too.
If Fairfax and Montgomery counties had been hit with this sort of epochal flooding, we’d have had a delayed opening, and unscheduled leave and telework, in a freakin’ heartbeat. But no, this happened on the east side of the DC area, so it didn’t count.
I’m really getting tired of this.