snow business

[jazzfish]

So, I'm at work today.

Anderson Road, despite having had snowplows up and down it for the past two days, is still in less than stellar shape. I can only imagine what the actual back roads are like. (123 and International are both perfectly clear.)

Mostly I've been very impressed by the local snowplowing, and by the power company. We had a couple of flickers on Friday night, nothing more. The water heater even stayed on. Hearing the reports of power outages and housebound-ness coming in from further out has solidified my desire to never live any further out from a population center, or be any more car dependent, than I am right now. I don't doubt that there are advantages to such things; they're just Not For Me.

They say it'll start dropping another five to twenty inches later this afternoon. That's about the point when I stop admiring the pretty white stuff and start getting genuinely concerned. Where are they going to put another five to twenty inches of snow from the roads?

Of course, it hasn't actually started yet, so this may be a big fake-out. We shall see. . .

Comments

[selki.livejournal.com]

It's snowing heavily in Frederick according to a friend, but not here yet. Don't know when/if it'll hit you.

[jazzfish]

That's something, then. So far it seems intent on staying north of here, which, since it's not getting me out of work early, is fine by me.

[tamnonlinear.livejournal.com]

It's been snowing here for about half an hour.

This is once again fueling my desire to move into the city. It might suck in different ways, but I wouldn't be as car-dependent.

[jazzfish]

For me a car used to be freedom. Now, it's just being trapped in a different way.

[daghain.livejournal.com]

The job Arlington did of plowing my side street was very late and very poor. I spent three hours this morning attempting to dig my car out, only to find that my car made no progress down the street unless helped along by several burly men. Others did better (though many had SUVs with high clearance), so I'm not sure what the deal was...bad tires? But in any case, being further in towards the population center was less than helpful, especially with the buses not running.

[jazzfish]

Huh. That's exceedingly frustrating. Especially the bit about no buses. (I was plowed in on the front, so it took a little over an hour to dig out yesterday, but I was helped by a) the sun and b) the empty parking space next to me.)

In my ideal world I'm within walking distance of everywhere I need to be (grocery store, work, at least one "third space" kind of place), within public transit of many places I want to be (friends, partners, book/gamestores, restaurants, etc), and with access to carshare for the other places I'd like to be.

[thanate.livejournal.com]

It was snowing here a moment ago, but it seems to have gotten bored of it. (Also still well above freezing.)

The trick for not having these issues is not so much where you live in relation to the city, but to live either far enough north that this is normal and they know how to handle it, or far enough south that you don't really *get* snow. We're just in that awkward in-between place where there aren't proper contingency plans, and people don't understand that there are just some times you stay off the roads and let the plows do their thing until it clears up a bit. :/

I'm told MD has finally declared a state of emergency so that they can annex all the military vehicles to help keep the roads clear.

[selki.livejournal.com]

Nice icon! Really, there's never a time when seeing an octopus hat doesn't make me a little happier.

[scathach.livejournal.com]

I'll second this. We got about 10" yesterday (apparently the storm you're getting now), and while they were advising people to keep off the roads if they didn't have to travel, nothing really shut down. Minneapolis did declare a snow emergency, which is only the second one this season, I think. We usually don't bother unless it snows more than four or five inches at a time. But yes, we have such a thing as a 'snow emergency,' and there are plans, and everyone knows what they are and where not to park when so they can actually plow to the curb. You guys have a lot of snow even by our standards right now, and I remember well how debilitating even three inches is in the DC area.

Don't worry too much about it. Relax and stay home, since that's pretty much all you can do. And remember, it's february. It'll warm up soon and all that snow will melt. Maybe a rain garden?

[jazzfish]

and then the snow came
we were always out shoveling
we'd drop to sleep exhausted
and we'd wake up and it's snowing

[jazzfish]

It started here at about ten of four, in that mist that's too cold to be rain, too small to be snow, and too wet to be ice. It's been coming down consistently since then, and icy enough that they closed the Fairfax County gov't (and thus work). Looking at the radar, I think y'all got hit by today's storm a lot worse than we did.

Snow location: This is mostly just the same rant I have about not wanting to live in a subdivision or have to drive everywhere, with an added layer of smugness that I'm trying hard to scrub off because nobody wants to see that, not even me.