37 degrees in Jax, FL, this morning? You Yankees are not my friends, no more.
I got caught in the collapse of civilization at Newark Airport last night. I was coming back from the West Bank and flew right into it. We sat on the runway for four hours, then waited for our luggage for 3 more hours. Then the airline canceled my flight to DC and said it wouldn’t be until Saturday before I could fly home. The wait for taxis was 4 hours long and apparently the streets were gridlocked and all the hotels were full. I slept at the airport and bought a ticket on Amtrak to DC for this morning and when the airport monorail got to the train station, the doors wouldn’t open and we had to go back to the airport. I finally got on a train and am just passing Baltimore on the way home. I haven’t showered in almost two days and I’m wearing the same clothes. I don’t know where my luggage is and I don’t care.
What was great about them? You never seen snow before? You don’t realize there are literally millions of pictures of snow in every city known to man that are right at your fingertips? You gotta wish the weather yesterday upon those of us who don’t see the “greatness” of pictures of snow?
We have a child in kindergarten in Fairfax County Va., and so we now get to experience that system’s famous willingness to shut down or open late for just about anything. Supposedly the roads in the less urban parts of the county are more treacherous.
Ok, as I’ve mentioned, I’m moving to the DC area next year and I’m getting more active in following DC on social media.
But NBC Washington seems to take the snow hysteria to another level. This is the third such incarnation of Winter from Hell that they’ve posted this week.
I totally get it. We used to live in your area, but are now out in the western armpit of the county, where we had almost two inches and untreated roads, with the same bumper-to-bumper traffic.
Every year, they act like it’s a surprise–what is this white substance? Why is it so slippery? They never budget or set a comprehensive road-treatment plan in place, so that bit of snow either shuts things down or gets a lot of people stuck with car repair bills.
I’m also bitter that we went directly from running the AC to having frosts in a few days. Autumns used to be gorgeous here, and a reason to want to live again after the horrible summers. My normally beautiful morning glories refused to bloom at all due the excess rains, and then they froze.
I do like the snow, though, as long as I don’t have to drive in it.
DC winters are why I specifically bought a home without sidewalks, and my vehicles are all 4WD with new tires.
I refuse to shovel.
I noticed articles yesterday:
The New York Area Was Nearly Paralyzed by 6 Inches of Snow.
Snowstorm causes havoc in NYC
Those of us in the snowbelt wonder about you people living on the east coast: what would you do if you got a serious snowstorm?
It was a seriously blown forecast; happens every 10 years or so. In SE PA we were supposed to get about 1" of “wintery mix”; ended up w/ 5-7+“. They don’t put plows on for only 1”. By the time they realized we were getting more & recalled all the trucks from trash pickup, leaf pickup, road repairs, etc. & got the plows on them there were already cars stuck. Once cars start getting stuck, the plows can’t get thru, when the plows can’t get thru, more cars get stuck. With a serious storm, more people would stay home & the plows would start plowing sooner, when there’s less snow on the ground. When they’re on top of it one really doesn’t need 4WD to get around.
I went out, on foot, Thurs evening. Took me my normal 3 traffic light cycles from when I can first see the light until I got there. In that time, not a single vehicle moved thru the intersection. Heading to the right is a couple hundred feet of elevation. Once that backs up, & cars are at a stop on those hills, fuhgeddaboudit.
FCPS got rid of half-day Mondays for elementary a few years ago, which gave them a ton more snow days they can use before they have to make anything up (Virginia requires a minimum total number of hours per school year). They also wanted a lot of snow days so they can keep getting waivers to the so-called Kings’ Dominion Law and start before Labor Day. Hence, closing at the drop of a hat. Loudoun County has been doing the same thing for years.
Our goose is cooked in Montgomery County. Thanks to Gov. Hogan’s executive order that schools have to start after Labor Day and finish by June 15, they were only able to build 2 snow days into the calendar. We’ve had about two winters in the last 15 where that would have been enough. It’s set up to fail. Last winter we had 5, the previous had only one, but the three in a row before that had 10+ each due to several very large storms. This winter is supposed to be snowier than normal. We’ve already used up 1 of the 2 days. Spring break is going to disappear with makeup days.
This is the first year since 2002 that show days in Montgomery County schools are of no concern to me. Our youngest is at Ithaca College, which had a rare snow day yesterday. It was the last day before break, so a lot of students were leaving anyway.
I work for DC Public Schools, and we were open on time. My car was in the shop, so it was bus/Metro for me. I sure as he’ll wasn’t going to ride to work on a motorcycle.
Geez, between this and learning that there are schools out west that don’t go back to school after thanksgiving until January I feel like the kids who go to my university are getting short changed on breaks - they only get Thursday and Friday off, just like staff.