Yikes, Gov. Jim Douglas has just asked the Vermont National Guard to help Montpelier get ready for The Flood.

A group of 18-20 Guard members will assemble early Tuesday to help fill sandbags. The Guard has some kind of machine that fills 250 sandbags in an hour. Guard members will help distribute these bags around the downtown. All this will take place as lawmakers get back down to business up the hill after their Town Meeting break.

The Winooski River looks so peaceful, frozen like a rock, except for some puddles and a small channel, but I've seen what can happen.

I wasn't here for this river's last uprising, but I saw what an ice jam could do in Bangor, Maine many years ago. There was a sudden thaw and a downpour on a February day and suddenly the placid, ice-crusted Kenduskeag Stream became a gushing onslaught in a canal running through the downtown. Where the stream joined the Penobscot River, the ice jammed against a railroad bridge. The water in the Kenduskeag might have broken the icy barrier, but the Penobscot River is tidal all the way to Bangor and high tide pressed back against that ice.

The result was lightning fast flooding of a downtown parking lot, small row of shops and a few streets. People noticed the rising stream, ran out of buildings only to find their cars already bobbing. One woman made it to her vehicle (really her father's which was why she was in such a rush), but couldn't start it and then couldn't get out. The rising water pressed hard against the doors. She couldn't open the windows, either -- electric. She had her nose at the ceiling in a pocket of air when a guy driving by plunged in and pulled her from car. They had to be rescued off the car roof.

So I'm getting nervous about where my car is parked here in Montpelier. For Terri Hallenbeck and me, as well as out-of-town lobbyists, some legislators and lots of state workers, there aren't a lot of parking options in the best of circumstances and none are on high ground.

I appreciate that city and state officials, including Gov. Jim Douglas, are taking this flood hazard seriously. We are, too. We've got the evacuation map posted on our bulletin board. I just hope I know soon enough so I can move my car -- somewhere.

--Nancy Remsen