Philly Today: Widespread Flooding Inundates Philadelphia Region

This is you. This is what you look like right now. (NOAA)

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You Can Stand Under My Umbrella

It rained all night. There was wind. There’s still wind. Also:

• Flood warnings were issued.
• Water rescues were executed successfully.
• Parts of Delaware Avenue have been closed to traffic.
• Some flights into/out of PHL were delayed or canceled.
• A few schools in the ‘burbs had to close or open late.
• The Delaware River rose to 4.5 feet above its normal level.
• A police car and an Amazon delivery truck crashed into each other; that might have been rain-related.
• The Vine Street Expressway, though, at press time, is not a swimming pool.

The Red Cross, meanwhile, has opened a shelter at the Darby Borough Recreation Center for people living along the flood-prone Darby Creek in Darby. For the latest flood and weather updates, you should probably keep an eye on 6abc.com or KYW 1060‘s Twitter. Our Doppler radar is out of order.

Bottom line: The worst is behind us. The rain is expected to subside by 1 p.m., and the flood warnings/watches will continue a while longer. The high winds will chill around 6 p.m. The rest of the week is expect to be cold and dry.

Mysterious Sandwich Sparks Confusion, Hunger

Look, Victor’s not here. This is Pat’s (and Sandy’s) place all week, and I want to use it to solve the great mysteries of our city/time. Let’s start with a tiny head-scratcher that has probably only puzzled a couple people.

My old pal Ryan Godfrey, elected election official in the great state of West Philly, recently took a photo of a piece of artwork on a wall at the Broad and Washington Target that puzzled him to his core. To his core!

Don’t know what it is but I would eat it. / Photograph by Ryan Godfrey

What is that? A fruity dessert or a complicated meatball sandwich? Are those blueberries or bowling balls? How big is the food item depicted here? Is it not a food item at all?

Your mission: Identify the possibly delicious thing.
Suggested research method: Google around, maybe?
The stakes: Fairly low.
Solvability: Shouldn’t be too hard.
If you know the answer: Let us know here.
Additional information: The unnamed artist presumably also created these skateboarding cats observed elsewhere on the premises:

Noted cat skaters Kitty Hawk and Catnip Praman. / Photograph by Ryan Godfrey

By the Numbers

1: Keys hidden somewhere in the city right now by Instagrammer/future supervillain Eric the Puzzler. (Never mind. Somebody found it.) Anyway, he’s going to keep hiding them. Find one and you get into some “exclusive event” he and the Penguin are putting together.

$50: That’s how much a Kensington man was paid to star in a viral video about his substance abuse issues, according to this article in The Guardian.

1989: The year SEPTA shut down its nigh-apocryphal Spring Garden stop on the Broad-Ridge Spur. Here, watch some urbex dudes sneak around down there. (P.S.: It’s not the spookiest decommissioned underground train stop in Philly. That’s all I’ll say about that.)

200,000: Chickens who died in a fire at a Delaware egg farm yesterday. Just wanted to bum you out.

$900 million: That’s what Chobani paid for La Colombe. As you may recall, the yogurt corp was already financially invested in the Philly coffee chain.

And from the Who-Knows? Sports Desk …

In the realm of good news, the Eagles have secured a spot in the playoffs without even having played yet this week, thanks to the 49ers’ win over the Cardinals and a few more pieces falling into place.

More good news: the Cowboys’ mauling at the hands of the Bills yesterday. And still more good news, we guess: Roger Goodell doesn’t hate the tush push. And the team filed for a trademark on it, to go with its earlier trademark of “Brotherly Shove.”

In the realm of bad news, Jalen Hurts isn’t feeling well. He flew separately from the rest of the team to Seattle for the Birds’ Monday Night Football face-off with the Seahawks and is “questionable” for the game.

And in the realm of who knows? On Sunday, the Eagles demoted defensive coordinator Sean Desai and promoted his assistant, Matt Patricia.  There had been widespread bitching about Desai’s D in the wake of back-to-back losses to the 49ers and the Cowboys. Here’s more than you ever wanted to know about why and how the game was flexed from its original Sunday-night slot in the schedule.

How’d the Sixers Do?

It didn’t seem fair that the Pistons had to play us again — in our house, no less — on Friday night after we dusted their shorts on Wednesday, but who are we to argue with the NBA? Tyrese Maxey hit an early three, which was good to see, considering his uncharacteristically lackluster performance in the prior game.

Oh, by the way, Daryl Morey had his contract as president of operations extended. Maybe Maxey was happy about that. But a hot start chilled off, and we were only up 26-22 at the close of the first quarter. At the half? 61-39. Again, not the most thrilling hoops game in the world. Embiid only had 18 points. Halfway through the third quarter, he had 31, and the score was 80-50. That meant Embiid broke a Wilt Chamberlain record:

https://twitter.com/SixersJustin/status/1735836390762455162

He sat at the end of the third with 35 points. Oh, there was Bricken for Chicken, too! Some nice minutes for the subs in the fourth, and they acquitted themselves well, for a final tally of 124-92. It was the Pistons’ 22nd straight loss.

It’s good the Sixers won, because they flew to North Carolina that night for their Saturday game vs. the Hornets. We had a full contingent, for a change, and started Joel, Tobias, De’Anthony, Tyrese and Nic; the Hornets were severely depleted. So they weren’t hitting much of anything early on, while we rolled off an 11-0 run and led 33-17 at the end of the first quarter. Joel already had 18 points and eight rebounds, and Maxey was banging threes.

https://twitter.com/NBA/status/1736190522710954259

There was a fun moment in the second quarter when a Hornet tried to bounce a ball out of bounds off Robert Covington and RoCo deftly leaped over the throw to let it through to Maxey. At the half, we were up 73-44. Jealous fans of other teams who were bitching about this easy stretch of our schedule should have had to watch the last three games. Joel hit 42 points by the end of the third and sat again, while a coterie of Sixers fans screamed, “MVP!” The final score: 135-82.

https://twitter.com/JeffSkversky/status/1736210763763560716

They play again tonight against the Bulls at Wells Fargo, 7 p.m. start.

Any College Hoops News?

There were four City Six games on Saturday. La Salle hung tough against the 24th-ranked Miami Hurricanes but lost, 84-77. Temple’s Owls got clipped by the VCU Rams, 87-78; Drexel’s Dragons rolled over Albany, 71-52; and the St. Joe Hawks throttled the Iona Gaels in their away game, 83-58. Today, Drexel hosts Penn State Greater Allegheny at the ungodly hour of 11 a.m.

The Flyers also played.