snowpocalypse '10 - I <3 my weenie city

[rivendellrose]

Office closed for snow. We have ventured out to get coffee, slipped around a little on the ice, enjoyed the beautiful, frigid sun, and returned home. The Boy has to work from home for at least a little bit. I? Am taking this as a day to do some beta-reading for a friend, and then see how much further ahead I can get on NaNoWriMo. And maybe work on a drawing I started last week.

I ♥ Seattle winters.

Lest you non-locals think my office is being totally stupid, I've been collecting stories of 3 and 4 hour commutes last night due to snow-related stupidity on the freeways. And just this morning, in the 1-block walk to get coffee, we saw a bus smashed into a car, which, in turn, was smashed into a light pole. Yeah. East coast and midwest cities may function perfectly well on three feet of snow when Seattle crashes under three inches, but I suspect east coast and midwest cities have infrastructure prepared for this sort of thing in ways that we don't (because it happens about once every other year). Also, you don't have our hills. :P

Comments

[nightsinger.livejournal.com]

One of Chris' coworkers ended up having a six-hour commute home last night. Whee!

I'm glad I got bitchy and insisted he come home at 2.30; it only took maybe half an hour longer than usual.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

o_O Lives in Puyallup or something, I assume? One of my mom's coworkers had that drive... didn't get home until 9:40. *shudders*

Yeah, The Boy insisted I come home at 3:30 yesterday, and it turned out to be a Very Good Thing.

[darthparadox.livejournal.com]

Fremont, I think? One guy at our office commuted home to Tacoma and apparently that took something like 11 hours. Gah.

[diea.livejournal.com]

Mostly, I think Midwestern cities (I live in Michigan) are better at handling snow. HOWEVER, everyone forgets how to drive in the first snow of the year. It's as if they all get amnesia and forget how they used to drive eight months ago.

You're probably right about the infrastructure. We have plows with salt that are ready at a moment's notice. Although, they never budget enough money so we run out of salt by February or March. Every year they plow fewer and fewer roads. Living in a poor state sucks sometimes!

I feel so weird that you are getting snow and it was fifty degrees and raining here yesterday!

[diea.livejournal.com]

Also, I would like to point out that in the Upper Peninsula, there are some major hills in the worst lake-effect snow region. It's fun driving through Marquette in the winter!

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Are those city areas, or more like country, then? I've never had trouble driving on country hills (er... when I drove), but city hills... bleehhhhhh, that's different. Get halfway up a steep incline and there's a stop-light? Disaster.

[diea.livejournal.com]

Yeah they are cities! Well, they are UP cities, so they don't live up to Seattle obviously, but perhaps a small suburb? In Houghton, the whole town is a hill and all the roads are one way.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Ha, I didn't mean to imply they wouldn't be, I was just curious. The only other city I've seen so far that has crazy hills like Seattle (and worse) is San Francisco. They're just insane with all their hills.

What is it with hilly cities and one-way streets, I wonder? Seattle has too many of those, too... There must have been a fad for them at some point in our history, but it's a bit frustrating sometimes.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I feel better knowing you guys forget every year - we have the same problem with the first big rain every year, and people remember quickly after that. Maybe the problem is just that since it only snows once or twice a year (sometimes less), we never get past the not-remembering bit. ;)

And yeah, plows and salt and all - we get on major roads, but it's really erratic, and there's some places (like that hill by our apartment) where it just doesn't make much of a difference.

Wow, that is weird. We switched weather patterns!

[platoapproved.livejournal.com]

I'm a little jealous of all the snow right now. Not the complications and danger that go with it, of course, but still. It's so odd not being in Walla Walla for the winter for the first time in four years. :O

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Awwwwww. Yeah, that's always kind of tough. I got all nostalgic last night, too, just because snow and windstorms in the city aren't nearly as awesome as snow and windstorms out in the country (like where I grew up). Crazy the things you miss.

[mimerki.livejournal.com]

Parts of New York state are about as hilly, so it's mostly infrastructure. We just don't have it here. Plus, salt. In NY and Ohio, they don't sand the roads. They salt the roads, which actually melts the ice. (And destroys your car, but you know? I prefer a little extra rust compared to dying in a crash due to ice on the roads.)

On the other hand, I never saw black ice the way I have seen it here. A road here can look clear and be more dangerous than a snowstorm.

[jpegasus.livejournal.com]

They wont salt the roads here, because they're worried about the extra salt going into the sound and messing up the water, I think. Though they do at least sand. Sometimes :x

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I think we do salt some, though? At least I've seen salt on, like, stairs and things. It must just not be the roads or places with, um, drainage. But yeah, that makes a lot of sense that it's to keep nasty things out of the sound.

[mimerki.livejournal.com]

Yes, the concern is that the added chemicals (because as I understand it, these days commercial road salt isn't salt like you'd put on your food, even if adding salt to the sound were okay) could do damage to the sound. Still, on days like today, if they'd salt my road it wouldn't be closed.

And let me add that I'd like a camera attached to the road closed sign and a reckless driving ticket automatically sent to every idiot who tries to take this road. It's a big orange sign with a blinking light and you have to drive around it to use the road (and there's a less-steep road one block away that isn't closed), so it's not like it's a surprise that the road is steep and icy and not safe to drive.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

A road here can look clear and be more dangerous than a snowstorm.

Very, very true. The black ice is the absolute worst.

[icepixie]

Hehehe. Nashville has exactly the same kind of winters and approach to snow removal, and nearly the same terrain. (We have thirty snow plows! For a city of 600,000+! For giggles, I looked up the stats for similarly-sized Milwaukee, and they have 729.)

Snow daaaaaay!

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I did a little searching, and it looks from this article (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/theweatherbeat/2013494240_seattlesnowplowsheadoutaround8ammonday.html) as if you guys might actually have more snow plows than we do. Looks like we've got 22. Wiki says you guys average 9 inches of snow a year, though, and Seattle's average is... uh, listed here as 13. Huh. Weird. The things you learn about your own city from looking at Wikipedia... they're probably counting the suburbs, though - those get a looooot more snow, being mostly in hilly sub-mountain regions.

Snow day!!!!♥

[narsilion.livejournal.com]

Seattle's average snow is listed at 13? Really?
Many years we don't get any snow. When I first read it I was thinking Washington, and thought well, yeah, if you include Eastern Washington. But Seattle? That's weird!

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think Wiki's just being dumb. I know we get a fair amount in outlying areas and in the mountains and all, so they're probably counting that in, I guess, but that's not *Seattle*.

[onefishjyuufish.livejournal.com]

I had a two hour-ish commute from Lacey to Puyallup last night, and it sounds like I was lucky to have it as short as it was. o_o

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's pretty good from what I've been hearing. Still, yuck! I hope you're able to stay in today!

[shadawyn.livejournal.com]

Watching the news this morning, 3 and 4 hour commutes were pretty short as the night got later.

There was an accident that happened at 10PM last night that shut down all lanes on I-5 S (they were routing people though the express lanes) up in Lake City--3 semis, a bus, and a couple of cars.

They'd been working all right to clear it, and only did so at around 8AM this morning.

(I'm so glad for my early shift. We missed the snow going in, and heading home.)

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Yikes. That's absolutely crazy about the I-5 accident. I hope everybody was okay. (Unlikely, I suppose, given that many vehicles involved, but... daaaaaaamnn.)

[jpegasus.livejournal.com]

UW closed due to snow, which means both school and work off for me!

And I didn't even have to get on the freeway to get home last night, and it still took me two hours :\

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Wow, the whole university shut down? That's pretty impressive! Usually they just leave it up to individual professors. Awesome stuff!

And yeck to the commute. It was crazy out there last night. I'm glad to hear so many people are staying home today, so maybe there won't be any more major accidents and stuff.

[kusanivy.livejournal.com]

You forget that some of us are Canadian - we know ALL about snow days ;)
(although I have to admit that the number I have had since leaving school are relatively few. But even when you DO have to go to work they can be a much needed break (for instance when I was working retail, if we had no customers due to bad weather our boss would let us work on display crafts and stuff like that - or heck just the fact we could all congregate in one spot and have a nice chat, as long as someone kept an eye on the door was nice)

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I would never forget my Canadian friends! I just don't do a good job of distinguishing. ;) I kind of think of Vancouver BC as Seattle's conjoined twin to the north, with different currency and a political system that I wish would take us over, and the rest of Canada roughly equivalent. ♥

And yeah, snow days are awesome. Even if we'd been in at work, I can guarantee not much would have got done around the office, so we're better off this way. When we get snow days in Seattle, though, there's always a lot of mockery on the horizon from places that get snow regularly, so I like to stave off as much as possible before it starts.

[babel.livejournal.com]

It is weird reading this after walking home kind of sweaty from 86F weather.

[cordeliadelayne]

Heh, that sounds like how the entire UK handles a bit of snow. It'll be interesting to see if we run out of grit to de-ice the roads again. *g

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

I used to live in the Midwest and Colorado. They have snow. I used to drive in it with impunity. Here we have ice sandwiches, that is, a layer of snow between two layers of ice. That stuff terrifies me.

That's the real difference.