No bike, no bus, no service. The metro is hosed too.
You've never seen anything like the DC reaction to snow. Yesterday, as I walked through the snowy streets, I looked at the drivers inching along and thought "they've never seen snow before". After a while, though, I began to think "they've never seen cars before". It's as if each of those little white flakes was composed of some sort of powerful explosive activated by contact with car tires or shoe leather.
Try Raleigh, NC. Perfectly wretched.
Weird... I never felt that Dallas, TX was equally wretched in the -- extraordinarily rare! -- snow. Maybe it's because of the ice storms, which are less rare and much, much more disrupting for traffic, that mere snow does not bring everything to a grinding halt. A combination of the two though is known to produce amusing side effects -- such as 4WD SUVs "parked" in flowerbeds.
Come to Dallas. We'll see your "wretched driving on ice" and raise you a "driving at 70mph." About once a year we get an ice storm. The only folks who can drive to work are the transplanted Yankees . . . .
Doh! Max beat me to it!
You've never seen anything like the DC reaction to snow.
Damn Yankee girl. :) Of course I have, I'm from Durham, NC. The DC reaction, which I experienced yesterday, is very similar. People stay home from work or else go out and drive very slowly (with a few people recklessly changing lanes and passing everyone), often rushing to the store to buy milk, bread, and toilet paper.
Really, though, why does it pay to develop all the mechanisms to deal with snow when it's here today, gone tomorrow? Might as well just take the day off in that case; at least that's how the bus drivers feel. Now when it sticks around for months, like in Ithaca, NY, that's a different story.
This Feb in Raleigh schools were closed by 11 PM the preceding day, even though a flake had yet to fall and none in fact did until ~7:45 the next morning (ie after the kids were supposed to be in school anyway). Utterly pointless.
Given the type of people that congregate in our nation's capital, I expect a new, overbearing law any day now that will govern the way the entire country handles snow removal. Or maybe we can just ban snow?
DC drivers are scared of everything. As someone who drives the beltway almost every day, I have noticed that they can't even drive in the rain, let alone snow. I've noticed my commute doubles in time whenever it rains, and triples in the snow. I think DC drivers are under the impression that their cars are made of witches, and will melt should water, be it in its solid or liquid form, come in contact with them.
Metro's running. I rode the red line this morning. It was fine, just like any other morning.
Utterly pointless.
Not at all. The kids enjoy it, both the snow and getting off from it. When snow falls so rarely, it's a reasonable reaction.
Would you prefer schools being suddenly canceled in the morning and parents having to suddenly decide what to do? Merely because the snow started later than forecast does not make it pointless to cancel.
John Thacker almost gets it right. I'm a Pittsburgher who was baffled and amused when, during a year in Charlotte, I saw 2 inches of snow shut down the entire city for days. Charlotte's snow removal system was comical: it seemed to consist of two guys driving around and throwing salt out the back of a pickup.
Then somebody kindly explained to me, as Mr. Thacker does, that because snow is rare in Charlotte, it wouldn't make sense to buy trucks and plows and salt that would likely never be touched in any given winter. Southerners stopped seeming silly to me at that point.
But here's the thing: while DC is southern, it's not as if snow is unheard of there. Blizzards take place every other year or so. So really, what excuse does it have for its lack of a snow removal system?
I grew up in Louisville, KY. Sounds a lot like D.C., Dallas, and N.C. based on these descriptions. There's a rush to the Kroger's the night before for bread and milk, and then the city shuts down for 2 - 3 days over 2 - 3 inches.
When I lived in Denver everyone would point & laugh when they saw an SUV in the ditch, because the assumption was it was a Texan learning to drive in the snow.
To be fair, driving on a quarter inch of snow at the freezing point is more hazardous than driving on 4 inches of snow at 10 farenheit. The snow arrived 5 hours sooner than expected, so most roads were not salted. It wasn't as bad as an ice storm, but it was worse than any heavy snowfall that I've ever driven in.
Come to Boston, where only about half the drivers react like they've never seen snow before. The others react like they don't realize they're seeing it now.
Fifty years ago, when I was growing up in NJ, the town we lived in contracted with a private trash hauling service. During October, the trash trucks were outfitted with plows: if the weather was good, they collected trash; if it snowed, they plowed the snow. No muss, no fuss.
Back in the 1980s, one of my friends, whose family had drifted down from Boston to the Eastern Shore of Maryland, commented that if the Soviets really wanted to shut down the US a foot of snow on DC would do just the trick....
Oh, and the major problem I've discovered up north is the number of people who think having an SUV with ABS means you don't have to worry about the conditions of the road.
Thacker:
NC parents can't make contingency plans the night before and actually decide in the morning? Please.
Do it for the kids? Kids should have to earn their snow days by shoveling snow all winter. Besides there wasn't even enough snow to play in.
Mostly I was pissed because I drove to work when I could have slept in and taken the day off. I never watch the 11 PM news, so I woke up that morning, saw no snow, and came to the eminently reasonable conclusion that the sky was not falling. Why on earth would I check to see if school is canceled when it's not snowing?
Thank God I'm in Philadelphia now. (How often does He hear that, by the way?)
NC parents can't make contingency plans the night before and actually decide in the morning? Please. ... Kids should have to earn their snow days by shoveling snow all winter.
They can, but why should they, in either case? "Let's make things more annoying in order to build character!" It snows very rarely, so in NC they take advantage of it by taking off for snow days whenever they can, knowing that the snow won't last and it'll only be two or three days the whole year. It's perfectly reasonable. Yes, it wasn't enough snow to play in, but "enough snow to sled in" was an event that occurred every 5 years at the most in my childhood.
Why on earth would I check to see if school is canceled when it's not snowing?
Ah. So mostly you were pissed because you hadn't adapted to the local climate and situation. Fair enough. I suppose you would have similar sympathy for transplanted Southerners who didn't show up for work or school when it snowed in Philly, expecting that "obviously" it would be canceled? Or for tourists in Pittsburgh totally confused by the Pittsburgh left?
But here's the thing: while DC is southern, it's not as if snow is unheard of there. Blizzards take place every other year or so. So really, what excuse does it have for its lack of a snow removal system?
The snow removal system is considerably better than in NC, but worse than places north. Seem reasonable. Even so, it's not like here (in DC) the snow doesn't melt on its own in a day or two in the vast majority of cases. DC gets blizzards, but not snow that would stick around for months if you didn't do anything. (And weeks is still fairly rare.) Consider yesterday's snow-- it'll be in the 50s this weekend, and the rain will wash it away anyway. It's not like you have to reserve half of an enormous mall parking lot to create a towering pyramid of slowing turning black snow, like in Ithaca.
DC's snow removal system actually works pretty well. The roads were cleared and free of ice all day yesterday and this morning there was no hint of slippery roads. The only time I remember the city being basically shut down from snow was the 28 inches we got in Feb 2003, and that's allowed, being as we only get snows of that volume once a decade or so.
In Atlanta snow causes other problems, mostly in downed power lines and tree limbs. A couple of years ago I was without power for two days with electric heat! Everyone panics here too.
I was in Atlanta during the March blizzard of 1993. The metro area got less than 4 inches of snow on a Saturday morning. I walked out to the local 7-11 to get a paper and, during the half-mile walk along along the road, I saw over 20 cars run off the side of road.
Fortunately, the snow melted two days later when the temperature hit 70 degrees, otherwise there would have been mass starvation of Atlantans trapped in homes.
I don't know whether you're not biking because your bike is smashed up [I seem to remember you had a crash a couple of weeks ago] or because you don't bike in snow.
When I used to live in New Jersey I used to get studded snow tires for my bike. This was a while back and they were hard to get but I only used them occasionally and they lasted a long time.
They weren't a magic bullet, but I manage to commute at 7-8MpH [11-15KpH] without too many problems, in an inch or two [3-5cm] of snow.
-dk
>I suppose you would have similar sympathy for transplanted Southerners who didn't show up for work or school when it snowed in Philly, expecting that "obviously" it would be canceled?
Poor analogy. The case you describe would be analogous to me looking out the window, seeing just a little snow, and assuming it was business as usual. But that's not what happened -- there was no prompt for me to even check with the weatherman. I don't watch the news each morning to see if the university burned down, why should I check to see if it's closed when there's no snow to be seen?
Ha! Watching people drive "like they've never seen snow before" is my favorite part of the first big snowfall.
My dad, a transplanted Minnesotan, used to scoff at the reaction of DC-area drivers to any hint of snow. My mom, a transplanted North Carolinian, shares the general attitude of the region.
When I was in school the area's hypersensitivity to the stuff was great (except for when they extended the school day and year after the big snows we got in January '96). Now that I'm a working adult who has to commute in the stuff, snow is a major pain in the ass. Yesterday it took me two-and-a-half hours to drive to work. I think I got out of 1st gear maybe 3 times the whole way. Not because there were tons of accidents on my route, but because everyone was so freaked that they slowed down way too much.
Btw, during that big President's Day storm in '03, I had to stay home. Though I worked at the time at VDOT (where the motto is, Snow is King), my street wasn't plowed for 3 days, and I couldn't get out. And that wasn't VDOT's fault. The road was owned by the subdivision, not the state or county, so it was the HOA's responsibility to plow, not VDOT's.
Chris Core, evening drive time talk show host on WMAL in DC, makes the following announcement upon sight of the first snowflake: "Attention. Abandon your cars. It is snowing." While this is at least partially in jest, it is not far off the mark.
An anecdote from my VDOT days:
We would get many calls from folks in the Great Falls area who were incensed that we had not plowed them out immediately. They could not understand why VDOT had a triage system and was plowing out interstates, then primary roads, then secondary roads, then large subdivision streets (with public-owned roads), then small neighborhood roads. These folks who lived on large tracts of lands with 3 or fewer houses per street could not understand why VDOT wasn't sending plows out there at the first sign of snow, and then revisiting every hour to maintain them. It was especially comical when they complained that we were sending out only the small plows, and only plowing out one lane instead of two. We had to explain, over and over again, that this was the result of living off narrow pipestems in exclusive neighborhoods. These were the same folks who objected to any proposal by VDOT to change their roads from picturesqe, narrow and winding.
I think LA gets hit hardest by snow. The emergency rooms in Hollywood get jammed with cases of nasal frostbite.
But that's not what happened -- there was no prompt for me to even check with the weatherman.
"No prompt?" It was below freezing, was it not? Was it overcast at all? Had the temperature rapidly decreased recently, which generally indicates a cold mass of air hitting a warm mass, and increased chance of snow? Do you never check the weather at all, and just rely on how it feels that morning and the weather approximately having the Markov property? Even so, certainly that morning you knew that it was below freezing, and might snow, just from looking outside.
Snow is a rare (but annual) event in NC, hence an event. Of course people don't care whether or not it's going to snow on a particular day in places where it snows all winter. This is similar to how the Bangkok Post rarely displays a weather forecast. However, anyone who grows up in NC (particularly a kid) has great interest in when it's going to snow.
Forget snow, Njorl, southern Calufornians need to be reminded that you can't drive fast in the rain. How moronic is that?
I don't watch the news each morning to see if the university burned down, why should I check to see if it's closed when there's no snow to be seen?
Now who's making poor analogies? Which is more likely, snow or a fire? Is "no snow to be seen" really absence of all prompting and evidence that it might snow? The temperature and the clouds wouldn't give you a hint that it was possible at all?
I suppose you wouldn't watch the news in the morning to see if the university was on fire, just because you smelt smoke and maybe saw some, because there was no fire to be seen?
My uncle from Chicago has a great snow-in-DC story. He'd moved to DC recently, and he woke up one morning and there was an inch of snow or so out. Everything's closed, but he says to himself, "I'm from Chicago. This is ridiculous, I know how to drive in snow. I'll go in to work today." So he gets in his car, drives out, turns on the radio, listening to the morning drive-time show.
Gets about a quarter of the way there, and the host comes on and starts talking about how the city's shut down from snow, and my uncle's rolling his eyes. Then the host says, "And for those of you from up north who know how to drive in snow, remember—the rest of us don't."
Uncle thinks about that for a minute, turns around, goes home and stays there.
My family moved from Idaho to DC when I was 8 years old. That winter we had one of DC's rare 8-inch snowfalls. We were seemingly the only family in our townhome complex with a snowshovel.
I made a bundle shoveling all the neighbor's walks. Some of the easiest money I ever made.
As a teenager in Vermont I could always make some money shoveling driveways during and after a big snow, but the return on my labor was much, much lower. Good thing I like shoveling snow.
Funny. I remember a friend of mine (who is originally from PA) telling a story about how he almost got a ticket for driving in "hazardous conditions" on a freeway in Delaware when there was little more than a dusting of snow on the ground.
>Now who's making poor analogies? Which is more likely, snow or a fire?
As a matter of fact, in my 1.5 years at NC State, we had more legit fire department calls to my building (ie stuff actually was on fire) than we did snow days. So yes, the building being on fire was actually more likely.
But here's the thing: while DC is southern, it's not as if snow is unheard of there. Blizzards take place every other year or so. So really, what excuse does it have for its lack of a snow removal system?
Actually, as CL pointed out, the snow removal system here in DC isn't too bad. We just suck as drivers, with or without snow.
Two interesting experiences with snow:
1. Driving Highway 93 along the Colorado foothills from Boulder to Golden at 1am, in a small 2-door car, with six inches of fresh powder on the ground and more falling. The vehicle would literally have slid backwards on some of the hills had it not already been moving forwards.
2. Having an Indonesian roommate go exuberant when he saw his first serious snowfall, maybe 2 inches or so -- and then watching his jaw drop through the floor a month later when an upslope storm dropped 28 inches with four-foot drifts.
The last time I rode with my daughter, she was driving down the Autobahn at 90mph. The Germans pass on the left, drive on the right, no problem.
We're now in the DC area, visiting my daughter. People around here cannot drive, regardless of the snow. I've never seen so many people driving 45 in a 55 zone. I've never seen so many passing on the right.
The snow is no problem, the highways are clear. People around here just don't know how to drive.
Megan, I'm afraid you'll just have to get used to it.
I spent several stints in DC in the '80s and '90s, and in every winter for every snowfall it was the same story. Sounds like nothing has changed.
We Northerners snickered - heck, if my school district (Western PA) was as paranoid about snow days as the DC Metro area, I'd still be in high school.
But it all really is a matter of perspective. I just spent 10 days in Joensuu, Finland. Daily highs of 20-25F, 6-10 inches of snow on the ground with daily flurries. I was amazed by the bicycle traffic - I could have been in Amsterdam. Those Finns probably snicker at us Northerners who put the bikes away for the winter.
Cheers,
No matter how good the snow-removal services are, there will occasionally be an unusual storm that overwhelms them. I spent most of the 60's and 70's in Traverse City, MI, a town with a well-funded and comparatively efficient city government, and a whole lot of experience with snow. And yet, in the winter of 1977-78, after a series of heavy snowfalls all the roads were getting dangerously narrow between high banks of snow. They had plenty of plows but nowhere to put any more snow. They did get out frontloaders to fill up their dump-truck/snowplows and haul the snow piles out in the country somewhere, but that's a very slow process, and spring came before they'd got very far.
Then I joined the Air Force and moved to Denver. Denverites are pretty experienced with light snow and ice, but one storm dropped two feet of snow overnight and for a week the four lane roads had shrunk to two plowed lanes, with the other roads turned into narrow alleys. From there, I went to New Mexico. Half an inch of snow that melts by noon, and I'm driving my old rear-wheel drive Pinto around cowboys that have somehow got their big 4x4 pick-em-ups stuck. As soon as we could get into base housing 1-1/2 miles from my job, I stopped driving to work. In decent weather, I bicycled. For the occasional light snowfall, I walked. That way, I could jump over the ditch and out of the way of the skidding cars, which I figured was much safer than being out there with them.
From my one tour near DC, I agree with the poster that said that even without snow, "People around here just don't know how to drive." The center of national government is evidently a magnet for those too self-centered to care about anyone else on the road. (And liberals want these people to run everything???)
However, large cities have a problem with snow and ice that neither plowing nor good driving will solve. They use the roads to near their safe capacity with dry pavement, and have no margin for dealing with slippery pavement. The number of cars passing a particular point per minute is:
n = (5280/60) * (average speed in mph)/(average spacing in feet)
Slow the cars down and either they've got to cram closer together or fewer of them get through, and of course following closer on ice gives you lots of fender-benders that stop traffic totally. Note that "average spacing" is not front bumper to rear bumper but front bumper to front bumper - there are limits to how much it can be reduced even if you don't mind playing bumper cars.
And that's why a few inches of snow nearly shuts Detroit down even though their drivers have plenty of experience with it.