This article was an April Fools joke!

State officials have confirmed that the entire town of Wayland will be under water within a matter of days.

“Residents must evacuate immediately,” said an emergency reverse-911 phone system message. “The tsunami wave will be too large to out-run. We’re strongly advising against using canoes and kayaks to ride it out.”

Town officials have been scrambling to complete an ark, but two political committees debating the issue are having difficulty deciding not only who will get to board the ark, but also how it will be furnished.

“It’s an outrage, really!” said the leader of Wayland Homeowners Against Canoes and Kayaks (or WHACK). “Residents Against Reckless Spending wants to put in tile! Tile! We won’t settle for anything less than marble. We can’t lose sight of our standards, especially in these difficult times. Weston is putting marble imported from Scotland in their ark!”

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Some Wayland residents were shocked to hear that the great flood was coming, but many already believed that recent flooding in town was a precursor to a much bigger event.

“I’ve only been riding a duck boat to school every morning for the past three weeks!” said one hostile Pelham Island Road resident. “Nope. I had absolutely no idea there was any flooding. Not a clue. Should seeing my car hanging off my roof have tipped me off?”

Despite half the town being submerged in water, Wayland Public Schools “will stay open at all costs” according to the Superintendent who e-mailed parents earlier this week. Posts are being installed in the flooded junior parking lot at the high school so that students can tie their boats up. Mrs. Mahn, the WHS parking monitor, will be enforcing standard campus privileges from her motor boat.

Town officials spent yesterday with representatives of Tourism for Massachusetts, discussing the possibility of obtaining Duck Boats to ferry kids who do not own boats to and from school for the remainder of the year.

Wayland High School students polled were generally intrigued by the idea of the Boston icons transporting them to school, but also feared that the school’s prehistoric architecture might erode and collapse on them as they sit in their classes. Then again, this is business as usual for the high school community.

Possibly more pressing than attending classes and flooring is the space issue. The ark will hold only 70% of the town.  Town officials began a random lottery on Monday, leading to significant outcry from WHACK, which wanted the issue to be raised at an emergency town meeting so that residents could vote on ark designs before moving to the lottery.

“What good is a Town Meeting when we have a tsunami wave coming in 5 days? We’ve never had a meeting shorter than 3 weeks!” responded a RARS committee member. “WHACK can debate all they want, but contrary to popular belief, the field house isn’t a space craft. When the Sudbury River floods and the field house is underwater, flooring will be the least of our concerns.”

This article is part of a series published on the first day of April.