A mile and a half? Break out the skis or snowshoes.
Only if we want to leave the neighborhood in a vehicle 
Our driveway slopes up from the street, and as noted is quite short (FCM, I’m cringing on your behalf - 100 feet???).
It can actually be surprisingly tough to get the car up it, even though it’s not that steep, if it hasn’t been cleared - I had to do that gut-clenching combination of “gun the engine, then hit the brakes immediately” today to get the car up the hill and in the garage but NOT in the family room on the other side of the wall.
We wound up leaving it in the garage for now. I decided to follow the advice in the thread.
I was out 3 hours ago picking my son up from work. The roads were getting messy. It wasn’t “scary” yet, in that there was good visibility, and the roads weren’t actively slick, but the few other cars were all taking it very easy. An hour later would have been a very different tale.
We park at the end of the driveway if there’s going to be a lot of snow, but that’s because the driveway is 1/8th of a mile long - that’s a ton of snow to clear even with the snow blower. If it was shorter we wouldn’t park at the end.
If you don’t have a garage to park in, consider draping a tarp over your windshield, roof, windows. Sure, it’ll be a pain pulling a snow covered tarp off the car, but perhaps less than scraping clear your windshield and windows.
:eek:
Umm. . . . Are you sure this is the Washington DC in America? Because that’s not what I’ve heard. I hear that you’re a semi-southern city that freaks out every time you get even an inch of snow.
And rain. We hear DC completely freaks out over rain storms too.
A friend in Vegas texted me last night:
“Should I park the car in the garage or the driveway?”
Instead of the parkway? Listen, it’s better not to ask. Trust me on this.
It’s probably too late, but this is good advice here. It’s a LOT easier to blow six inches of snow four times than to try to blow 24 inches once. Same reason that in places where they get heavy snow routinely, the snowplows are (supposed to be) out while the snowstorm is taking place, not waiting until after.
Are you in an area that uses rock salt on the roads and is the garage heated? My experience follows my Dad’s - parking in a heated garage with daily doses of salt residue and dust on a car tends to rust them out quicker than an unheated garage or just leaving it outside. Dad’s theory was the constant freeze/thaw cycle and moisture from the melt.
Well, I put the car in the garage then forgot to close the door. Now there are snowdrifts preventing the door from closing. I have some local guys hired to shovel tomorrow so I hope it will be OK until then.
Which alternate universe Washington do you live in? Even the underground parts of the Metro shut down with just a few inches of snow. It is not an area that copes well with it.
Did your son actually go to work yesterday? My guess would be – no.
Well, yeah… the Metro closing down is not unusual in this kind of blizzard, though it usually manages to stay open in a more “normal” (normal for here, anyway) snowstorm.
And I guess “used to snow” is relative. We get significant snow most winters, in that usually we see at least a couple storms of a couple inches. The municipalities have equipment and chemicals, though certainly not on a par with a truly northern city. We might not bounce back from a blizzard the way, say, Boston could (guessing - I’ve never been in Boston during a snow event but I’m assuming that they have a higher ratio of plows to citizens than we d0).
Where it nails us is when it’s unexpected - like the mess we had Wednesday evening, when until shortly beforehand we had only flurries predicted. An inch of snow especially during evening rush hour is just enough to wreak havoc, given the combination of insane traffic, roads slippery from motor oil, the fact that our cars just aren’t winterized enough… and let’s face it, people can be MORONS when it snows. You see a light dusting and think “no big deal” and next thing you know you’re exchanging insurance information with the other driver whose car you helped put in a ditch. Around here, I’d almost rather drive in the early hours of a real blizzard - where people are at least prepared and the roads have been treated.
All that said: Dweezil did go to work Sunday, though not “on time” - he called in and said he was still stuck (before his 10:00 shift) but by 1:00 or so our street had been plowed, so he called and they were glad to have him (he helped cover for 2 other people who couldn’t make it at all). There’s no way he could have walked the 1.7 miles in nearly 2 feet of snow. Moon Unit works at a pet supply store nearby as well, that was closed Saturday but open Sunday, so she did a shift… which saw 3 customers.
During the four years I lived in Philadelphia there was one major snowstorm. I was on a SEPTA bus heading home, and the driver pulled to the curb, shut the bus down, and walked home.
I managed to walk a half mile to my apartment. No idea how people who had further to go handled it.
I had to dig out our truck - it couldn’t fit in the garage with the car, the motorcycle, and 2 tons of pellets for the pellet stove… I used a broom to knock the accumulation off the bed cover and the cab, then dug a shovel-width path along both sides of the truck and ensured the tires were clear.
A couple of our neighbors came around with an ATV sporting a plow blade and a small John Deere front loader - they cleared our drive in about 45 minutes, saving my back considerable pain. (Spousal unit is having back surgery next week - no way he’d have been shoveling.) It was $100 well-spent - the driveway is pretty much dry, as are the streets in our neighborhood. I love our county - they do an excellent job keeping the roads clear.
OMG, that’s totes adorbs 