Yet Another Storm

[Bill Hicks]

53 Inches! What is spring going to be like in WV?!

Floods I would bet.  After the 1996 blizzard we had massive flooding in the DC area.  I have pictures of the Potomac River raging out of its banks as it flowed between DC and Virginia.  Folks who live in places like Old Town Alexandria should be stocking up on sandbags. 

  I remember that, we got 46 inches from the 96' storm and about 10 days later it was like 75 degrees and it all melted at once, i had sent the wife out before that storm
  because she couldn't miss that much time from work so i was here by myself with the critters, anyway after the melt there were no roads left, i didn't see another human for over
  two weeks, that was one time i was very happy to have tv, what a lonely feeling knowing there was no one at all but me.

Wow...that must have been something.   

What I recall most vividly was standing by the Kennedy Center looking out across the water towards Roosevelt Island and seeing a herd of deer struggling in the water and being swept downstream in the 15 MPH current.  Their cries of distress were haunting. 

[akaskip]

53 inches is staggering, what are your annual snowfalls, Bill and AkaSkip?

Jeez, I would be stocking up on sandbags, that's not really a joke. I'm seriously considering snow treads and ccchhhaaaiiinnnsss, lol, but not really-I AM looking at tires and chains for next winter.

I think it's somewhere around 27 inches, if we get the worst case on this one that will put us over 100 inches for this winter, hope this is not the new norm.

[akaskip]

  

What I recall most vividly was standing by the Kennedy Center looking out across the water towards Roosevelt Island and seeing a herd of deer struggling in the water and being swept downstream in the 15 MPH current.  Their cries of distress were haunting. 

That's awful, i hope you never have to witness that again, lets hope for a little slower melt this time.

[Librarian]

we are now officially under warning for 6-10 more inches Tuesday & Wednesday, more to the south and west of us. local TV news peeps are taking great pains to explain that so far it is only the *third* most snow ever in history for us here...ah, well then, no problem, right?

i took a few hours tour around the city by foot and bus today--since my line was running, i wanted to make it worth their efforts.

we've got a mess, and we're not a "big" city. that first couple inches on Friday night was so wet, it just turned into something like cement...so now even our *snow* has pot-holes. once you push the top layers off to where ever you can stash them, you find something that almost requires a jack-hammer to remove. with 6 to 10 more inches tomorrow and Wednesday, and wind, and tonight, anything still slushy is sure to freeze solid as the overnight low will be about 8 degrees.

the only good thing is that all that heavy snow we already got has surely brought down all vulnerable trees and power lines...right? right?

my parents finally have their power back this evening, after driving all the way to Uniontown with my sister to demand they be sold the last remaining floor-model generator in the tri-county area. i'm just happy to see them taking action for next time!

Got National Guard? we do.

(but at least using them to rescue old ladies and drive them to the ER in Humvees is something useful!)

it's weird to watch the mix we have here on my end of the city--lots of really OLD people, and lots of college students, many international...all these giggling Chinese sorority girls helping old Polish Babushka Grammas cross the snow-banked streets and board buses. Benetton Ad worthy racial cross-sections of sporty young men pushing nurse's cars up icy streets. UK-accented grad students who apparently come from a land without snow, wearing tennis shoes with blue-for-recycling Giant Eagle plastic grocery bags stuffed into them to keep the wet out? all my "rainbow flag" neighbors hand-shoveling out the streets, uncovering and marking fire hydrants in case the fire dept. needs to use one.

happily City people are not, on the whole, nearly as helpless or grumbly as those in the inner-ring 'burbs around here seem to be!

my thoughts on this are being confirmed: either IN, or way OUT, but don't be caught in the middle waste-lands! if any place goes Mad Max on you, it will be those close-in suburbs--if they don't just accidentally kill themselves within the first 48 hours.

two words: BOOT CHAINS.

my dad bought me a set for hunting, but they have proved rather useful here in the city lately!

humor: local TV news shows all the major suburban stores' shelves empty of milk & bread, etc., while on my walk around the University district, i saw plenty of that sort of basic food still available--but god help you if you really wanted a bag of chips or microwave popcorn or beer! kids are kids, after all, and they know what Snow Days are for!

i'm right on that line here, between where people THINK they know how to drive in snow, and where they REALLY know how. i spent a few years living in Madison WIS, and the crap i've seen here the last few days would never happen there...they just pack it down with some pebbles and sand, and drive on top--sounds good, eh?

 

[zenobia]

@EWO - I have a good tire chain website if you want it!

Went out to walk the dogs an hour or so ago.  Of course, the loaders did not come to clean out the parking lot.  The next couple of days should be very interesting.

[swampman]

We got 21 inches in Central PA last week and expect another 7-12 inches tonight.  We have stocked up on everything we need.  Fortunately, we have great snow removal since we have lots of room to put the snow.  I feel sorry for DC./Balt since they don't have a lot of room to put the snow once it is removed.  I remember when I lived in NYC that they would fill dump trucks with snow from the streets and dump the snow in the East River or Hudson River depending on how close they were.

If the power goes out, we have a generator and a great wood stove that we can melt snow on for flushing.

Bring it on, Gaia...

Funny story, The first morning after the storm I let our Jack Russel out and the snow was over his back.  Needless to say, he did not want to make yellow snow.  I had to stomp down the snow with my snow shoes so he could do his thing.

That reminds me.  Avoid yellow snow when making water if the power goes out.

[Grower]

Snow started early this morning. So far not as heavy as the weekend dump, but very steady. The roads are covered again, and the spots swept bare by the wind are covered. Poor chickies. They hate snow.

[AnIowan]

We are on the tail end of a winter storm warning that stretches from NE Iowa all the way to the East Coast.  We've gotten probably 6 maybe 7 inches of snow, but the winds are supposed to fire up and blow all afternoon and night.

Growing up, I remember what we called "The Whale", this monsterous drift across our driveway where I grew up.  We've got pictures of where Dad had carved out a path way through it and it peaking a good foot taller then the car.  We now have pictures of that same stupid drift at least two feet taller then that, a good 12 feet tall now.

While I bitch about my Iowa weather, I know it's nothing to what's going on out East.

This is insane.

[EyesWideOpen]

@Zenobia, yes ma'am I want a good chain link, thank-you! If I'd had chains in Dec, I'd've felt a lot better although I may not have used them-I hate that so many people here who've no clue put such a burden on our Police and fire people. What a mess. But if I'd needed to get out, chains would have been the only ticket.

27", hmmm. AkaSkip, can you descern a pattern over the past 3-4 years?

We're just coming out of a drought here so all the rain and snow has been welcome, but even the clueless here are seeing a steady pattern of worsening and longer winters.

[DoomNymph]

Jeez.  I can't wait for spring.

We got off easy with the last storm and only got about a foot, but it looks like we're going to get another 14-20 inches on top of that with this new storm.

The pantry is full.  The only thing I fear is for the power to go down for any extended period of time.  If that were to happen, we may be in for a wee bit of trouble.

[Alecia]

It's pure white out the window right now. We are a mile from the lake so we get the worst of the lake effect. Naturally, my boss lives a half mile away so there's no need to close the office! 

[EyesWideOpen]

Alecia, no offense, but your boss is an ass.

[Oldchuck]

Here's your link, EWO:

http://tirechain.com/

Bought chains for my tractor from them. Good prices, quick delivery, they made a small mistake with the order and corrected it immediately.

Looks like this one is going to miss us too. Last year we got near 150". We'll have to get some pretty big one's to make up for the shortage.

Librarian is quite correct, I think, in how capable people are with handling snow. Of course, if you are not expecting something then you are less likely to be prepared for it. Here in my small city the snow gets plowed to the edge of the street several times during a storm. After it's over when they get around to it the city sends  around a grader, big snow blower and dump trucks. The grader scraps the snow banks in the middle of the street, blower shoots it into a line of dump trucks, dump trucks haul it off to the river. Now you can park on the street again, but only during the day. City also has a squad of little plows that plow all the sidewalks. Had we gotten your kind of storm, and we do quite often, school would have been open on Monday.

[EyesWideOpen]

Thanks OldChuck.

[Alecia]

Alecia, no offense, but your boss is an ass.

LOL, no offense taken. This is actually one of the only things he is an ass about, the rest of the time he's pretty tolerable as far as workaholic bosses go.