Woman missing for 10 years "just stuck in State Highway 1 traffic congestion"

AUCKLAND -- A Kiwi who disappeared nearly a decade ago has been found safe after she managed to exit the highway traffic where she was stuck the entire time..

Caroline Weber was reported missing by her husband in November of 2008 after failing to return to their home after a day of work.

“It was a Friday, and I’d left my office early in hopes of avoiding the usual nightmare of traffic,” the 47-year-old insurance agent explained.

When interviewed, Mr. Weber said that his wife had called him as soon as she left the office. “It was probably a few hours after lunch when Caroline phoned me to say that she was going home a bit early.” He explained, continuing “You see in our family, we like to keep in touch with one another -- especially with my wife since her office is quite a distance from our house. Nowadays you can never tell what can happen, so it’s best to be aware of each other’s whereabouts.”

However, she was met with an unpleasant surprise when she found the highway traffic already blocked with cars despite it being early in the afternoon. 

On top of that, there was a rear-end collision just a few cars down and as she observed, neither of the drivers wanted to settle. Assigned traffic enforcers in the area couldn’t even pass via their motorcycles which was why they had to walk towards both cars. 

All Weber wanted to do was go home and spend some quality time with her family since it’s been a while due to her busy work schedule. But alas, she was forced to listen to two stubborn men bicker throughout the afternoon, under the blazing heat.

Unable to turn around and take another route, she says, Weber decided to call a friend to pass the time and in the process, she drained her mobile phone battery. It was just her luck.

When hours passed and night came, she decided to stop banging on her dashboard and cursing at the sky. Thoughts of “what if I had just walked home?” but she couldn’t possibly leave her car, or “what if I had taken a different route?” crossed her mind as she started to become hungry and in desperate need of a shower. 

“In a situation like that, there’s not much else you can do but wait,” she said. “It’s not like I was the only one trapped.”

For months she listened to her radio in hopes of catching some promising traffic news, but by the onset of spring, it had stopped working. It was a miracle that her car battery hadn’t run out.

“It didn’t matter anyway,” she says. “There wasn’t a single car around me moving.” So, she thought that it’s better to go through this with people than be alone. Caroline began talking to people around her -- most were friendly and some just didn’t want anything to do with human interaction.

And coincidentally enough, one of the people she met went to the same university as her. “We had few common friends, but a lot of fun stories about our memories in that campus” she said. It was as if they traveled through time with their memories, but kept moving towards the future in reality. But, traffic was just as bad and it felt like time was still.

In the following years, she did on occasion manage to inch toward an exit, only to be cut off by other impatient commuters, some of whom Weber believes had been there since the late 90s. At this point, she didn’t even bother getting annoyed or mad since she’s already been stuck for a few years, why not add more? In all honesty, she felt like she couldn’t care less anymore.

“I mean, I missed my family dearly and had so many thoughts and questions going through my head, but there was a certain peace I felt,” she exclaimed “10 years in and you’d think I’d gone crazy -- I just chose to use my time reflecting on life and the what if’s of it.”

She finally made it home on Monday, tired and in desperate need of a toilet, but in good spirits. She found her house in nearly the same state as when she disappeared, she says, as no one in her family bothered to tidy or do laundry the entire time she was gone.

During Weber’s ordeal, her children grew up, started on career paths, and her eldest son -- who had just begun university in 2004 - is now 28 years old and, coincidentally, has been missing since March of this year. Authorities believe he is also stuck in the State Highway 1 traffic congestion.

When asked what she thought about missing out on a decade of world events, Weber said that she has a pretty good hunch as to what has transpired.

“Europe must have grown larger and ever more cohesive, and how long has Turkey been a member of the EU?” she said. “But I’m really curious to know how ‘Lost’ ended, and I’m sure property values in New Zealand have really gone up. What’s the average price of a house in the city these days, 500,000 dollars?”

As the interview came to a close, we asked when she’ll be going back to work, and her answer was “I’d gone through hell and back just because of that damned traffic and I think it’s best not to step foot outside my house for a long long time.”