All news is focused upon the storm that will surely Kill Us All. At any minute, I expect the skies to open up and for the burning corpses of angels to drop upon the ground, turning all who see them hit into ice. Some online wag noted that the yet to appear storm most likely won’t be as bad as the one that hit South Bend on January 9th. I decided it was foolish to point out to the fool that if South Bend was swallowed up by the earth and never seen again, people wouldn’t notice for months, if not years.
But we’re talking Chicago here. A major storm could not only screw up the planet’s air traffic, it could even inconvenience Oprah , and perhaps even delay some peasant from witnessing the miracle that is Rahm Emanuel. What if some Major Sports Hero wanted to go out and beat up some under-aged whore and his car was stuck in the parking lot? What then? This storm could alter the very fabric of the news universe of several days. Already, it has knocked Egypt below the fold of concern. What’s a government toppling riot in the Middle East compared to a winter storm that might cause the City of Big Shoulders to be late for work?
Just to be safe, fleets of trucks are out right now, scraping last years pavement off the roads so that any snowfall will hit something nasty and old. That will teach it. Salt is being imported from the finest restaurants in Europe and thrown into the faces of Minnesotan tourists. Screw your twin cities and Garrison Keillor going on and on about how snow makes a people healthy and strong. We take our snow fall bitterly and without joy. Snow is out to kill us and we are ready to fight back. Flame throwers are to be given to children so they can melt the offending snow on their way to the school bus. No kidding around. Death to weather men. The arrests of snowmen and any snow related decoration is taking place now. The homeless are being told to sleep near storm drains so when the thaw comes, the streets will drain easier. Mailmen are given sleds and packs of dogs to get the vital mail through. Anyone laughing or dreaming of childhood snow day fantasies will be beaten with a broom and told to shovel off a landing strip. There’s work to be done, goddammit. We don’t have time for a storm. Money needs to made, things need to be done. We’re on the cutting edge and can brook no delays, no way, no how.
A storm in winter! Who could have expected such a thing? Why weren’t we warned?
On one hand bows in admiration. On the other this will likely make the fifth school day that has either a late opening or full cancellation this year. I really don’t want my daughter attending classes in August.
We’re on the very border of the STORM OF DEATH. We could get an inch of ice…or nothing. I’m betting on nothing. Here in Columbus, we often have ‘sky is falling’ syndrome where these horrid winter storms result in a few inches of powder and that’s it. After living in upstate NY and growing up in the snowbelt of Ohio, north of here, Central and southern Ohioans do not know how to handle snow. It’s pretty funny.
But you know if the weatherman predicts just a couple inches of snow and a major storm blows through everyone will complain that they don’t know what they’re doing.
We’re getting the tail end of it, 1" - 3" of snow. After the last few storms we had here in NJ I’m looking at this one and saying “pfff”.
I’m at the southwest border of this doom. They keep alternating between 2" of ice and 2’ of snow. Right now they are leaning on 2’ of snow. It all starts tomorrow morning. I expect everything to shut down for two days. With predicted 40 mph winds, I expect to lose electricity for a day or two at least.
I’d like to enact a new rule: storms that plan to dump over 12" of snow at a time may only occur between 10pm Friday and 2pm Sunday. And if not, it’d be swell if my employers would shut down like everyone else, so I don’t have to miss work if neither of my neighbors gets a chance to plow our road (the town and the state each claim the other owns it, so neither plows it. nice)…
Right now they won’t even hazard a guess as to how much “heavy snow” we’re getting on Wednesday, but are instead for days have issued dire warnings about shoveling off your roof. I heeded said warnings, and I’m unhappy that the roof that took me 3 hours to clear Sat/Sun is probably going to need to be cleared again by the weekend. :mad:
I know you are making a funny but this shit is starting to get personal. We have the equipment to handle the snow in Massachusetts but there is no where else to put it. I am head of IT for a manufacturing facility that makes and distributes body parts for the whole U.S. and the world. If we get shut down because the roof collapses, guess what, Aunt Edna isn’t going to get a new hip after falling on ice but, more importantly, I can’t go to sleep until those services are restored. We already had power outages twice in the past three weeks and it takes me and two other people 8 hours to restart the facility after that happens.
Screw this. I hate it all. Humans are a tropical species and we aren’t meant to live in snow or ice. It isn’t natural. I saw a hunter-gatherer African tribe in National Geographic that I am probably distantly related to one way or another. They have the right idea. Not a fucking snowflake in sight. I could just rejoin them. I am going to watch The Shining now on Netflix and come up with plan. I hear the word redrum echoing through the walls.
Yeah, but think of the LA summers. This is my first winter in Maine, and every time I’m out there shoveling snow, I think of July in Arkansas (my home state). This is paradise.
As an old coworker of mine used to put it, “I’ve never yet had to shovel heat off a driveway.”
On the other hand, when we get even the tiniest bit of snow or ice here, it turns 90% of the drivers who weren’t already blithering idiots into blithering idiots.
Frankly, I tend to agree with you. I’m sure we will get some snow here in Chicago but I long ago stopped believing it will ever be THE END OF CIVILAZATION!!! like they tend to predict in these situations. Honestly, weather forecasting often seems about as scientific as predicting the future using chicken entrails.
Here in Maine, the heavy snow wasn’t supposed to start until tomorrow, but I can barely see through it outside right now, at 11am. This will be interesting.
I always wonder what the fuck my ancestors were thinking. Not only migrating out of nice warm Africa, but then settling in deadly climates all over the Northern Hemisphere? In fact, I’m going to start a thread about this very thing.
We’ve got the warning out that we will be getting 8"-12" on Tuesday/Wednesday. I went to my boss and informed her that I will be working at home on Wednesday, since the company has furnished me with a laptop and VPN connectivity. She rolls her eyes and exclaims that all these people are ‘esscared’ of the snow and it’s not even here yet! I humbly submitted that I am not scared of the weather, I could just do without the hassle of trying to get to work when I could be using the technology that was provided to work remotely. (stupid commuter trains get delayed when the chunks of ice-build-up get dislodged into the track switches)