The Cut Bridge was stuck open due to a power outage on Sunday.
There was a fire on the A. Piatt Andrew Bridge on Monday.
A man lost his life when swept from the rocks and many others were rescued on Tuesday.
And now, as I'm writing this, the week is concluding with preparations for what is forecast to be a "wind event" in Gloucester with tropical storm conditions as a result of Hurricane Earl.
As weeks go, this one has been unbelievable, and I know the patience of the residents of Gloucester has been tested over and over again. Any one of these circumstances puts you to the test — sitting in traffic for hours, not being able to swim at the beach when its 95 degrees outside, or dealing with cancellations of happily anticipated holiday weekend plans.
When it came to the colossal traffic jams from the stuck bridge and the fire on the Route 128 bridge, we were at the mercy of National Grid, who was furiously trying to get power restored to the Cut Bridge.
Obviously, the all clear to open the A. Piatt Andrew Bridge the next day was not going to happen until the fire was out, and the bridge declared safe.
These were circumstances that, once they occurred, we were not going to change. The best we could do was to get the word out, and manage through the impacts on traffic. Getting the word out proved to be a challenge.
Both bridge incidents were about 2 to 3 hours in length, so the turnaround time on preparing the communication, and getting the word out was limited. The city always likes to inform the Gloucester Daily Times and hope it uses its "text alert" feature to notify residents.
However, we weren't able reach them on Sunday — the power at the Times was out at the same time — so I resorted to using my personal Facebook page to get the word out about the traffic tie-ups.
On Monday, we posted a traffic advisory on the city website, which automatically pops up on the city's Facebook page. The Times also had text alert and Breaking News coverage at its gloucestertimes.com website.
The city only has 79 Facebook friends (or "fans") though, and we are still working out the kinks with our new website.
We might consider using the city's emergency notification system (Code Red). However, the administration is concerned about overuse of the system.
Today's policy is that we do not use it as a "public service announcement" communication tool. Our policy is to reserve it for emergencies, or public health concerns, and when your phone flashes Code Red, we need residents to listen and act if necessary. Does the inconvenience of a traffic jam (as bad as these were) rise to the level of a city emergency?
We also thought about using Code Red for announcing the beach advisory when we issued informing people of dangerous riptides and swimming restrictions this past week.
The issue there was that the audience we were trying to reach were people from out of town, who were fleeing the 95-degree heat, and are unfamiliar with our waters. Code Red is limited to Gloucester residents so we had to make the push with the local and Greater Boston media to get the word out.
And lastly, Hurricane Earl: We all know he's coming, do we need to use Code Red to announce it?
The administration would rather use Code Red if, as a result of the hurricane, there are emergency conditions to report.
We issued a Code Red after last spring's windstorm to let residents know there were 79 locations being worked on as result of downed trees and live wires, and provided an estimate of when power was to be restored. This is information you won't get from TV. It's coming straight from Gloucester police, fire and public works officials.
As with everything, it's a balancing act. We're tipping the scales towards reserving Code Red for true emergencies, and will pursue all other channels of communication for getting the word out to residents about those other issues of importance.
Carolyn Kirk is mayor of the city of Gloucester.
