Hey, it's just SNOW, people!

[dreamshark]

Okay, now I'm back to minnehaha's position on the weather hysteria. Scraping off my car this morning was a non-trivial chore, but once that was done there was nothing to it. I didn't even have to shovel the car out of its on-street parking spot, just rocked it a few times and it climbed right out of its personal little snowdrift. Nicollet Ave was wet, but snow-free, and the surface of the freeway was like, "Snow? What snow?"
Well, the Minneapolis part of the freeways, anyway. As soon as Hwy 62 crossed into Minnetonka, it deteriorated noticeably - left lane sort of half-plowed in spots, chunks of ice and snow sticking to the pavement.

But mostly, it was the easiest commute to work in recent history. Why? Clear roads and No Traffic. I didn't watch the TV weather reports at all - were they sowing Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt again? Where is everybody? Fewer than half the company is at work today, judging by the parking lot.

Bus routes suspended? Schools cancelled? WTF?

Comments

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Minneapolis was not holding classes today anyway because it's a teacher's in-service day. Which they cancelled.

D'oh.

K.

Where is everybody?

[davidschroth.livejournal.com]

Well, if they're anything like me, they just spent four or five hours removing snow from the driveway and sidewalks. And this is after the neighbor used his snowblower to remove the vast bulk of the snow from the driveway and sidewalks.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

But how easy a commute would it have been if everyone had been on the road as usual? If everyone had needed a parking space?

It's very difficult for school buses to get through unplowed streets, or around corners where the plows have piled the snow. And think of little kids trying to get on and off the buses at unshoveled corners.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

"But how easy a commute would it have been if everyone had been on the road as usual? If everyone had needed a parking space?"

Pretty normal. The roads were fine, for the most part, and it wasn't snowing. Parking lot might have been a little crowded, due to the need to pile snow SOMEPLACE, but it was nicely plowed by the time I got to work.

"It's very difficult for school buses to get through unplowed streets, or around corners where the plows have piled the snow. And think of little kids trying to get on and off the buses at unshoveled corners."

True, buses might have problems navigating the side streets, although at least they are high enough off the ground not to get stuck in the snow. The buses would probably have to stop a little ways from the corner to make it easier for kids to get on and off. But really, as to climbing over ONE snowdrift... I used to live in upstate New York in the days when all the kids walked to school (okay, I admit I lived next door to the school, but I still had to wade through a couple of snowdrifts to get there sometimes.

I'm just sayin' the difference between yesterday and today is huge. Yesterday was absolutely worthy of a true snow emergency. Today? Normal winter weather.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Maybe everyone is just exhausted. I know I am.

People who have the say-so on closing things, from the governor down to business owners, always have at least the potential to be damned if they do, damned if they don't. The predictions even last night were calling for several more inches during the course of today.

[jbru.livejournal.com]

As someone that's driven school buses for a living, I'll have to disagree with your second paragraph. It may be difficult for some school bus drivers to do those things, but it isn't a problem with the equipment. A vehicle with goodly tonnage gets pretty good traction in this weather. The only time we were pulled off the roads was due to an ice storm leaving about an inch of ice on the steep St. Paul hills. If not for those hills, we would have been fine as we pretty much broke up the ice for everyone else.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Maybe you and your colleagues were better than the drivers they have now. (Seriously.) R's school (where B also went to high school) has a fairly steep hill at one end of the block, and I can't tell you how many times over the years I've seen the buses not being able to get up there.

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

I'm reminded of something that Sarah Green taught me, "When the weather ball is out, run in circles, scream and shout."

Signifying nothing, of course...