The Big Storm: Day Two

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I see Australia is trying to get back into the news with yet another weather related disaster, this time in the form of a giant cyclone. But the is clearly our hour. The world’s attention is focused upon US, suffering in noisy dignity in Chicago.

Horror stories from Lake Shore Drive as people were trapped in their cars for 9 hours. Not a way to spend the night. Various complaints on how come the city didn’t rush to rescue them countered with notices that people
were told to avoid Lake Shore Drive fairly early in the storm. So you decided to listen to your CDs instead of the radio, eh? Didn’t hear the repeated notices to stay the fuck off LSD, eh? No sympathy for you then, unless you happen to be someone I know, in which case it’s an outrage that the city didn’t rescue you sooner.

There’s a good foot of snow on the back porch and we’re three stories up. Does this mean there’s 30 feet of snow? How can one gauge such a thing without actually stepping outside? And who would dare go outside?
The wind is blowing in tree snapping gusts and the temp is plunging. Do I really want to go out in this? I may have to, because this is an event, but I need to be well wrapped first.

It will be hard to say what is open on such a day. I imagine everything will open, but perhaps later than usual and there will be a note of desperation with any shopper. Great for sales of canned meat and snack foods, beer and liquor. Then the panic buying of bread, bottled water and toilet paper starts. One too many hurricanes in my past, I’ve seen it all before.

But this is the city crippling storm long wished for. Already set at the Fifth Largest storm to hit the area, and it’s not done yet. Tomorrow is forecast with clear skies and bitterly cold winds. Coming close to rivaling the winter of '79 as far as winter storms go. I don’t think Chicago will get the snowfall levels that buried Fort Wayne in my senior year of high school, but this is certainly one for the memory books.

It’s certainly ideal for my inner Old Timer. By Spring I’ll be cackling about the ‘Big Blow’ in Two-Oh-Eleven.

“Hadn’t seen such a storm in near thirty years! Drifts the size of buses that turned out to be buried buses filled with people, all blue and cold and dead. Starved and frozen like fish sticks from hell!”

I can hardly wait.

2

Glad you’re enjoying yourself!

3

I’m inside, working in my PJ’s with the comforting sound of the snowblower running outside. I guess I should at least turn on the coffee maker so the Mr. has a warm drink when he’s done.

4

Part of the problem in Lake Shore Drive - Chicago was people WANTED to stay with their cars and I can’t blame them.

What happened according to the Chicago Police Dept (CPD) was that a bus had a minor accident. This caused EVERY car behind them to stop. This effected the north bound lanes. The plows couldn’t get in and it caused the snow to pile up even more.

Yesterday even at the time the police closed LSD, the south bound lanes were moving.

The CPD brought in busses and let people warm in them till they could get the bus moved. But the northbound lanes, filled with snow and because of this, the plows couldn’t get in fast enough and people ran out of gas, result being more stalled cars.

So traffic wasn’t moving northbound. At around 9pm, the police said, “OK enough of this, you have to leave.” 9pm was considered the height of the storm. They told people, no more waiting to see, get out of your car and onto a bus and we’ll take you to the major street where you can get public transport.

Of course people didn’t want to leave their cars. Remember LSD is urban so it wasn’t like people were trapped exactly. We had lots of reports of people sitting in their cars but we also had lots of people say, they simply turned off their engines and walked across the streets to coffee shops to wait to see when the plows came.

It’s not like they were stranded on a highway in the middle of nowhere.

Of course the city could’ve done better. LSD always has weather issues. In the late 80s the winds were so high and the weather so cold it was blowing Lake Michigan onto the drive and freezing once it hit the drive.

I found Public Transit was STILL working well at 9pm at the height of the storm. The El trains and subways ran. And I give credit to the bus drivers who took me home late last night.

Oddly enough I could walk the distance I travelled on Fullerton in Chicago, in 30 minutes. The bus normally takes 5 or 10 minutes. It took a little over an hour to go by bus, but they did it. The driver’s went slow and were professional.

But you can bet next weather emergency, LSD will be closed long before there is any other problems

5

Here’s a great picture of some cars stranded on Lake Shore Drive.

Here are some “Stories from Lake Shore Drive.”

People were warned to stay off of Lake Shore Drive, but if you didn’t hear the warning, it probably made sense to take LSD. I don’t drive so I wouldn’t know, but it would seem so. I don’t know why the busses were allowed on LSD after the warning. Man, I would hate to be stuck on a bus for hours.

6

a. That’s a * lot * of snow!

b. Whoever titled that article “Bad LSD trip” deserves a raise.

7

5 hrs later and I’m once again listening to the snowblower outside. Fun wow. I am contemplating working from home again tomorrow.

8

Yep! Here’s a video from the same vantage point, a footbridge across LSD. You don’t have to be a friend to see this. I don’t know this guy, I just clicked on a link someone had shared. I’m not sure if you have to be signed up on Facebook to see it. It’s not a YouTube video or else I’d post the YouTube link.

9

I can’t view Facebook here at work, but if it’s the video I’m thinking it is, you can see it here on YouTube. At least, that’s the one that was being posted all over FB yesterday.