Well, that’s one issue on which we no doubt disagree – I’m happier when companies move their jobs to cities outside of the Denver metro area, because that means our agricultural water won’t be siphoned off for lush lawns in Douglas County. But we’re getting off-point.
If Denver could do it better, fine, then re-assess and find an economical way to do it better. My original point was that, Ski Country USA to the west notwithstanding, Denver and Eastern Colorado rarely get this kind of snowstorm, and it simply isn’t reasonable to expect instant and constant snow removal when it hits. The problem isn’t just snow, it’s wind, which creates drifts that can’t be plowed, but have to be shoveled out. No private company would keep a fleet of snow removal vehicles on hand for the once-every-decade storm system like we’ve been having, and no city should be expected to, either. And frankly, expecting to fly into and out of DIA in complete comfort and safety at the height of a blizzard is just idiotic. Of course DIA shuts down – and well it should, for everyone’s safety.
Out here in small-town Colorado, we have even fewer municipally-owned snowplows per capita, but our streets get just as clogged. We grab shovels and start moving the stuff instead of sitting on our butts and waiting for the city to do it for us.
The difference between this storm (so far) and last week’s is that this one started in the late afternoon as opposed to 9 AM and there was little or no wind with this one (again, so far - tonight may be a repeat of last week).
Last week people simple abandoned their cars in the streets, making plowing all but useless, and the wind took care of the rest. I walked to a nearby store last week, and the footprints I left in my driveway (16 inches deep) were completely covered in when I got back 30 minutes later.
If you want to blame someone for the roads last week, blame the people with SUV’s and pickups who drove before the streets had been plowed - they packed the snow down to the point where plowing was useless.
Fact is, Denver is the only major city and the only major airport in the “blizzard belt”. Other U.S. cities that say they get this all the time are simply lying. I lived in the midwest for years and a typical snow is two inches of powder. Anything above 8" is called a blizzard. The only major cities that can claim to have snows like we get are Boston in a noreaster (rare) and maybe once in five years, Chicago. We’ve had two in one week. The combination of heavy snow and high wind just doesn’t occur many places, and no one can deal with it. A blizzard like last week’s shuts a city down, tat’s just the way it is.
This time you’re just evening out the holes - makes it better for all of us!
Buffalo gets a ton of snow, yes, but I’d question whether it’s a major city and it is certainly not a hub city. I don’t think SLC gets all that much snow - most of it is confined to the mountains.
According to Wikipedia, SLC gets an annual average of 1 inch more snow than Denver (62.7 vs 61.6)… Not sure how reliable those numbers are, though.
Regardless, your point stands. SLC is pretty small compared to Denver, and it’s not a hub city.
On a related note, I was listening to some random conservative call-in show on KOA yesterday (I was trying to get some weather news), and the guy was complaining about all the coverage of this blizzard on a national level. “No one should be surprised,” said he, “Denver is in the mountains! It snows a lot in the mountains!”
Are there still people out there who think that Denver is in the mountains? Is this a nationwide delusion?
Oh, yes! There are people who think ALL of Colorado is in the mountains. Our local hospital, community college and city and county governments have a helluva time recruiting professionals. They get tons of applicants, but once the person gets here and realizes he/she is two hours from the foothills and four hours from a ski slope, they take off.
