Massive Storm Buries US East Coast In Snow and Ice

First time accepted submitter anthonycarlson writes "The second wintry storm in two weeks to hit the normally balmy south U.S. has encrusted highways, trees and power lines in ice, knocking out electricity to nearly a half-million homes and businesses." Kids are out of school, and houses are out of power, in much of a region that normally gets much rarer and lighter snowfall. If you're socked in, or if you're in the East Coast storm zone but have to venture out anyhow, what's been your experience? Some of the pictures are pretty impressive. Update: 02/13 17:24 GMT by T : Google Maps has a handy guide to weather alerts, shelters, and traffic info for those affected by the storm. (Hat tip to Chris DiBona.)

Comments

Wow has it come to this

[Big Hairy Ian]

Kids making snowmen is considered geeky

Re:Wow has it come to this

[DoofusOfDeath]

Kids making snowmen is considered geeky

Apparently even news for nerds is boycotting the Beta.

Re:Wow has it come to this

[Big Hairy Ian]

Bearing in mind these days in order to rebel against their parents kids are having to go t-total, drug free and celibate

Dad you're fucked you need to speak to my financial adviser

*Slits Wrist*

Re:Wow has it come to this

[Guppy06]

You never read Calvin & Hobbes, did you?

Re:Wow has it come to this

[Anonymous Coward]

Snowmen are pasty white, have an unfit-looking figure, wear strange hats and die without getting laid

*ducks*

On second thought, I did once see a pic involving a pantsless chick and a lucky snowman with a carrot placed lower down than usual ;-)

OK

[SomeRADDude]

Everything is coated in snow and ice, we still have power and internet. Our kids have been home since Monday school dismissal and depending on how much thawing happens today, they may well miss school tomorrow as well.

meh

[rarebird]

just looks like minnesota in an average winter...

Re:meh

[sensei moreh]

Not the same as down south. Been there, done that, glad to be away from it. Here in Minnesota, we get the snow, the ass-freezing cold, and the biting wind chill, but typically avoid most of the ice.

Re:meh

[Type44Q]

but typically avoid most of the ice

Not to mention the Southerners... (sorry, Moreh-san; it needed to be said). :p

Re:meh

[Gadget27]

I'm in Connecticut. I don't see what all the fuss is about. Ya, I've had to take out the snow blower a few more times this year than last year, but nothing happening here could be consider atypical. I understand the news it makes down south, as it has been lately in the Atlanta area, but this shouldn't be big news for New England. Up here, I think its just an opportunity for the local news broadcasters to drive up their rating, and for our governor to get some face time in front of the TV cameras to assure us that he's in charge of the situation.

Re:meh

[dcw3]

Or Michigan, where I grew up. However, they have the equipment and experience it frequently enough to know what to do. Around here (D.C. suburbs), you also end up with idiots who think they can just hop in their cars and drive around in it. FWIW, we have about 12 in. in our driveway, and I'm sure I could get around in my Jeep, but then I'd likely get stuck behind others who thought they could get around this crap in something a bit less capable.

Eastern Ontario - sunny and clear

[RichMan]

Up here where the US cold comes from it is nice and sunny and clear. Cold, but clear beautiful days.

For you Yanks, here is the Canadian Forecast, temperatures in celsius
http://weather.gc.ca/canada_e....

Re:Eastern Ontario - sunny and clear

[Anonymous Coward]

So -10C is about 14F...here in Minnesota we've had about three weeks of below 0F (-18C) weather, but the temperature isn't horrible its the windchill that sucks out on the prairie...you(Eastern Ontario) aren't really sending us any cold weather weather...come back when you are posting from Regina and we'll talk.

Re:Eastern Ontario - sunny and clear

[Anonymous Coward]

I grew up in Connecticut, USA and I thought I knew what cold weather was.

Then on business in February of one year (1998), I experienced the coldest I have ever been in my life in Toronto. Every time the wind blew, even the locals were hiding behind pillars and buildings.

Alex Lifeson's club was great - one of the guitar players from 'Warrant' was playing, the drummer was 'Karim' (sp?) and (dammit) I forgot who the bassist was. They played covers all night and it was worth the freeze - the only happy memory from that job.

I also learned what a "Maritimer" was and what peeling certain labels off of long neck beer bottles meant - it was described to me - unfortunately, I didn't learn first hand :( And there were a lot of pretty women there too.

Oh well. *sigh*

Re:Eastern Ontario - sunny and clear

[ArcadeMan]

I also learned ... what peeling certain labels off of long neck beer bottles meant

I also know what it means, but where the hell are you supposed to find bananas in the middle of a snow storm?

Re:Eastern Ontario - sunny and clear

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a cool -16F (-26C) in Michigan yesterday morning. Now it's a balmy 22F (-5C).

That's me on my deck in my Speedo with a Corona. My kids opened the pool this morning for the season. They broke the thin ice on top, but it doesn't bother them. They just play with the mini-bergs like toys. Neighbors are coming by later for a BBQ and some Volleyball. Should be fun.

Ah! Gotta go and get some more sun tan lotion for the wife. Back later.

Re:Eastern Ontario - sunny and clear

[nblender]

Forecast is for +5C here in Sunny Alberta ...

I do sympathize with the southerners, though... This is how we commute, 6 months of the year so we're used to it ... Our 'school closing' weather events are far more severe but it's all relative to what people are used to... I'm used to automotive fluids turning to butter at -40C... I'll walk around outside in a t-shirt if it's above -5C and sunny ...

Re:Eastern Ontario - sunny and clear

[cayenne8]

I also learned what a "Maritimer" was and what peeling certain labels off of long neck beer bottles meant -

Dammit..please finish this...

A. What is Martimer?

B. What does peeling the label off long neck beer bottles mean?

Re:Eastern Ontario - sunny and clear

[Ashenkase]

A. What is Maritimer?

Some one from one of these four provinces: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island or Newfoundland. They all touch the Atlantic, therefore they are called the Maritime provinces.

B. What does peeling the label off long neck beer bottles mean?

Bow-chicka-wow-wow!

Ok (And Crazy) In Alabama

[smpoole7]

I think everyone here learned from the Snowpocalypse last week. Most people stayed off the roads.

"Winter"

[Anonymous Coward]

The tilt of the Earth's axis relative to its orbital plane plays a big role in the weather. The Earth is tilted at an angle of 23.44 to the plane of its orbit, and this causes different latitudes on the Earth to directly face the Sun as the Earth moves through its orbit. It is this variation that primarily brings about the seasons. When it is winter in the Northern Hemisphere, the Southern Hemisphere faces the Sun more directly and thus experiences warmer temperatures than the Northern Hemisphere. Conversely, winter in the Southern Hemisphere occurs when the Northern hemisphere is tilted more toward the Sun. From the perspective of an observer on the Earth, the winter Sun has a lower maximum altitude in the sky than the summer Sun.

During winter in either hemisphere, the lower altitude of the Sun causes the sunlight to hit that hemisphere at an oblique angle. In regions experiencing winter, the same amount of solar radiation is spread out over a larger area. This effect is compounded by the larger distance that the light must travel through the atmosphere, allowing the atmosphere to dissipate more heat. Compared with these effects, the changes in the distance of the earth from the sun are negligible.

Awesome satelite photos

[Yonkeltron]

The GOES imagery has looked really cool as of late. As I've watched the storm travel west and then north, it's been really awesome to see the progression and the effects of the Coriolis force.

Where I live, that's normal weather

[DontBlameCanada]

Americans need to toughen up. Cancelling work and school because of a bit of ice and snow? Oi, your forefathers who blazed the trails to the west and through the mountains must be spinning like tops in their graves.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[CanHasDIY]

Americans need to toughen up. Cancelling work and school because of a bit of ice and snow? Oi, your forefathers who blazed the trails to the west and through the mountains must be spinning like tops in their graves.

How well is your local government set up to handle hurricanes? Oh, they aren't, because you never get hit by hurricanes?

Well, that's basically the issue in the South right now; perhaps you should go ahead and knock that chip of your shoulder.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[Anonymous Coward]

America is a big place. I live in North Dakota and we still had to go to work when it was -50 wind chill/ -30 actual temperature. The East side of the country is just not used to it like the rest of us up North.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[Nos.]

As another poster said, this isn't fair. Lots of us drive with winter tires, I doubt anyone down there has even heard of them.

We (most Canadians) have the equipment and machinery to clear snow, maintain highways, and the experience to get around in these conditions. They don't.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[Greyfox]

I was going to go into work, but I can't find a mule on short notice. :-P

When I was living down south, I usually ran my tires down to the wires as you can mostly get away with that down there. A good set of new all-season radials goes a long way toward making those crappy roads passable, even with rear wheel drive. Other problem down there is they're not really set up to clear the roads at all, so you get a lot more ice and snow on the road than you do in northern regions. Where I live now I swap my tires out a lot more often and they put some stuff down that keeps the roads more-or-less melted. Though a few days ago I drove in to work on top of a 2" thick layer of ice and didn't have a problem with it. Well... other than the huge temptation to do donuts in the parking lot on top of 2 inches of ice...

Having had 5 days of power outages in the last 4 years, I'm pretty much over expecting the power company to deliver power when I need it most. A backup generator is high on my list of priorities.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[SJHillman]

Five days of power outages in four years? I envy you. Where I grew up, it wasn't unusual to lose power several times in the summer to lightning and once or twice in the winter to ice. Since moving to the suburbs, we haven't had an outage last more than few seconds in the last four years but I still keep flashlights in every room and a stock of lanterns in the basement. I'm also equipped to run the essentials off of the car if necessary, although odds are I'll never have to.

Re: Where I live, that's normal weather

[Anonymous Coward]

When you get a storm like this once every ten years, it isn't cost-effective to keep equipment worth tens of millions of dollars around for years just gathering dust. When you don't have the equipment, you are ill-equipped to deal with winter weather, and it's much more difficult to manage conditions like this when they do occur. To put it bluntly, the south is doing exactly the right thing: shelter and wait it out.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[Anonymous Coward]

Many of us commute further for work than in a day than our forefathers' covered wagons travelled in a week. In ideal conditions they could cover about 100 miles,

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[gstoddart]

Americans need to toughen up. Cancelling work and school because of a bit of ice and snow?

Right, because places which have palm trees and warmer climates are entirely prepared for stuff like this.

Hell, I go to Myrtle Beach in the middle of winter to get away from winter here ... and I can assure you, snow and ice would happen infrequently enough to cause complete havoc, because it's a place where the golf courses are open year round.

Not so long ago (1999) Toronto called in the army because they had a lot of snow -- if a Canadian city which normally gets winter can be crippled by it, imagine a place where snow and ice is a rare and exceptional event.

Never underestimate just how much of a mess what we call a small amount of snow can cause in a place which doesn't normally have to deal with it.

If you have alligators and palm trees, it doesn't take much to really throw stuff into disarray.

Seriously, don't be a douche.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[Frigga's Ring]

Here in Eastern Massachusetts, we do get hit by hurricanes as well. And admittedly, they're hardly the strength that hits Florida or the Outer Banks, but they can still cause significant damage to the area. If your town's infrastructure isn't designed to handle the ice and snow, I both understand and offer my sympathy. However, I do look in amazement at scenes of the roadside carnage in the south caused by what I perceive as a dusting of snow. It's the same look I get when I complain to my store managers in Florida about it being oppressively hot in Boston when it's 'only' 96 degrees in August.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[Ken D]

...and what kind of road congestion does Canada have?

The whole nation of Canada has 35m people. Metro Boston has around 5m. Metro NYC has 20m.

In Boston on a good day the roads are jam packed and your commute takes way longer than it should. Throw in an accident along the way and your commute can be a major pain.

Now consider dramatically slower travel speeds, a mere handful of fender benders. That commute is just not worth it. What's the point of having your 1hour commute turn into 2 or 3? each way.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[mellon]

Hurricane Irene trashed half the bridges in Vermont two years ago, washed entire houses off their foundations, and washed away many miles of road. By the time the ski season started, all the roads had been rebuilt, sometimes involving adding sixteen feet tall fill for miles. The bridges hadn't been rebuilt, but we'd put in temporary bridges so traffic could pass. The big problem was and remains housing, but local government has done a lot to ameliorate the situation.

There was a pretty good article recently about the fiasco in Atlanta; apparently part of the problem there is that there are so many different local governments who don't coordinate with each other that it's very difficult to address problems caused by weather.

None of that negates the point that ice all over the roads is damned hard to deal with if you don't have enough sand trucks and salt piles. But we have that problem in Vermont too, and a big part of every town's budget and the state's budget is allocated to dealing with it when winter comes. Cold weather happens in the South too, and it can be planned for, but doing it costs money. I suspect that's the biggest part of the problem. In Vermont, we have no choice—these events happen _every_ winter, so elected officials who don't plan for it aren't around the following winter. In Atlanta, the feedback loop is much weaker.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[Anonymous Coward]

Not the best topic you could have picked, since the US "hurricane states" are apparently not all that prepared to deal with hurricanes either cough cough Katrina cough

Re: Where I live, that's normal weather

[mellon]

New York City uses garbage trucks as snowplows. There are ways of making it work.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[Lumpy]

"so you get a lot more ice and snow on the road than you do in northern regions."

Ive been driving on 6 inches of ice and snow in the roads for the past month. Yes this is plowed roads. I have 8 inches of it hard packed in my driveway.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[geekoid]

How earthquake prepared is your city?

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm also equipped to run the essentials off of the car if necessary, although odds are I'll never have to.

Unlike a whole-home generator, that sounds like something I could afford. Could you elaborate please?

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[Bucc5062]

. However, I do look in amazement at scenes of the roadside carnage in the south caused by what I perceive as a dusting of snow.

That is a dusting of snow normally on black from the freezing/thaw the night before. Folks here in the south do not normally, if ever, drive with these types of conditions. These are the people that live by "Hey, Bubba, watch this?". These are people that feel no guvmunt is going to tell them to not drive by God...thus we get carnage.

As an ex-pat northern I know better and stay safe in my home (I'd say warm, but the heat pump stops working well when the temps stay 30 for three days.). By this afternoon it will warm up enough to start the melt. Then I can drive without worrying about some DIxie Yahoo thinking he's driving at Daytona and putting a four wheel slide into the side of my car.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[ArcadeMan]

I don't know if it means anything, but in my city, even the insurance forms have Godzilla clauses.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[Bucc5062]

You're comparing apples to oranges. Bridges flooding out and getting fixed in time for ski season is a different effort then then immediate issues of snow/ice covered roads and little to no DOT equipment to handle it. The NE is prepared for snow because it is always there, each winter. The last two years we went sans snow all winter. Why pay for what you don't need.

I will give props to our local DOT this round for they really did respond better and the roads are much better and more important, people did not try to drive around.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[ArcadeMan]

...and what kind of road congestion does Canada have?

The whole nation of Canada has 35m people. Metro Boston has around 5m. Metro NYC has 20m.

Maybe, but as we all learned from South Park, Canada only has one road for all those 35 million Canadians.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[Valdrax]

I do look in amazement at scenes of the roadside carnage in the south caused by what I perceive as a dusting of snow.

That's your problem right there. It wasn't "a dusting of snow." It was wintry mix, complete with 1/4 thick sheets of solid ice on all the roads that formed as people were trying to get home.

Plus, honestly, if 80% of the people in Atlanta had panicked and jumped on the roads in the same half hour in good driving conditions, you'd have had hours long snarls anyway. The ice that trapped us in transit made it much, much worse, but it would have been bad without it. Probably not, "abandon your car and walk home because it's low on gas, and the gas station 1 mile away is about 2 hours away in this traffic" bad, but still bad.

It's the same look I get when I complain to my store managers in Florida about it being oppressively hot in Boston when it's 'only' 96 degrees in August.

People in the South are spoiled by air conditioning. I know, because I lived in Oregon for a few years and didn't understand what it was like to live in a house without AC in that weather until it happened.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[aevan]

To be fair...Toronto was entirely, and still entirely mocked for that... even by Torontonians. It just came out of the blue.... most of us just grabbed our shovels and were 'meh, moron'.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[Anonymous Coward]

That's your problem right there. It wasn't "a dusting of snow." It was wintry mix, complete with 1/4 thick sheets of solid ice on all the roads that formed as people were trying to get home.

That is "a dusting of snow" in Massachusetts.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[SJHillman]

In a nutshell, it's just a power inverter connected directly to the battery - cig lighter inverters have a max draw of about 15A before they blow the fuse on most cars, so you'll either want a permanently wired solution (like I did) or just use alligator clips that come with most 400+ watt inverters. You just need to make sure it can provide as power as you expect to draw. Items like a refrigerator or freezer only need to run once or twice a day to maintain sufficient cold (as long as you open them sparingly) and will usually draw under 400 watts if they're relatively modern. Likewise, you can power fluorescent or LED bulbs with a measly 400 watt inverter. Air conditioning, electric stoves and dryers are the only major appliances I would really hesistate to run off an inverter but even those can be planned for.

It's not as convenient or robust as a whole-home generator, but it's a hell of a lot more affordable for short-term power outages (a couple days up to a week or two). If you really want to be prepared or to use larger inverters, equip your car with a second battery that is also charged from the alternator. I got my 400W inverter for $15 on sale from NewEgg and it's sufficient to run anything I might need for an outage of up to a week. Harbor Freight sells 750W inverters for $45 and 2000W inverters for $160 (and that's before their ubiquitous 25% off coupons).

The real drawback is if you need your car at the same time you need to power something in the house, but it's an emergency measure that's just to hold over until regular power is restored. Combine it with some common sense preparation, like keeping extra gas in the garage, and it's a pretty good solution to keeping things going during an outage. Hell, I'd recommend just getting an inverter in the 200W-400W range that can run off the cig lighter socket just in case you're camping or chilling at a parking area or don't want to buy extra 12V car adapters for your laptop, tablet, etc - many come with USB charging ports as well.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[Frigga's Ring]

I think it's a poor comparison. An earthquake, hurricane, or tornado is magnitudes more destructive than a little bit of snow even with black ice on the roads (I'd say we are prepared, as Boston was hit with all three over the course of 2012). However, unlike the snowy, icy situation where my in-laws live outside of Raleigh, hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes and volcanic eruptions are just as dangerous if you drive 20mph instead of 70 on the highway. With snow, it's often the difference between arrive home safely and a serious car accident.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering this is the second storm they've had in about three weeks, I don't think they can use the "we're not prepared for these sorts of things" excuse anymore. Especially when they had advance warning that it was coming both times.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[gfxguy]

As another poster said, this isn't fair. Lots of us drive with winter tires, I doubt anyone down there has even heard of them.

We (most Canadians) have the equipment and machinery to clear snow, maintain highways, and the experience to get around in these conditions. They don't.

On top of that, we don't need more machinery and equipment... why waste tax dollars on such a rare occurrences? At the same time, during "snowpocalypse" (Atlanta two weeks ago) the extra sanders, salters, and plows were useless - because they couldn't get through the gridlocked traffic that was stuck on the roads. The online traffic map went from green at 12:00 to BLACK at 12:30... the trucks couldn't get through. I grew up on Long Island, and drove in plenty of snow and slush - but not ICE. This was ICE. And Long Island is relatively flat compared to Northern GA, which is at the tail of the Appalachians... all the problems happened on hills.

Yes, people were being terrible drivers, but it's a confluence of a number of things that caused the headache; we were lucky this time mainly because the ice accumulated over night instead of midday. People were already home, and just didn't go to work.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[gfxguy]

The problem is this was purely ice, not snow. It looked like snow on the news, but near the street surface it was just solid ice. I learned to drive in NY, and had plenty of driving in snow, but never had as treacherous a drive as I did coming home from work two weeks ago in Atlanta. On top of that, while GEMA has more sanders/salters and plows than it did before, during "snowpocalypse" they couldn't get anywhere because the commuters had the entire metro Atlanta area in gridlock. Unless they were going to plow through thousands of stopped cars, they were useless.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[Anonymous Coward]

The last two years we went sans snow all winter. Why pay for what you don't need.

OK it rarely (not NEVER) snows, so you decide to not take the cost of rarely needed equipment. That is balanced against the cost of what happens when it DOES snow - you need to be willing to shut down. When you gamble that a storm will narrowly miss, and don't shut down as a precaution, and lose - well, Atlanta was a mess...

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[ebno-10db]

your forefathers who blazed the trails to the west and through the mountains must be spinning like tops in their graves

I've always admired the way our forefathers dealt with this sort of thing - like the Donner party.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[ebno-10db]

Here in Eastern Massachusetts, we do get hit by hurricanes as well. And admittedly, they're hardly the strength that hits Florida or the Outer Banks

Not lately, but 1638 was a doozy.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[CrimsonAvenger]

However, I do look in amazement at scenes of the roadside carnage in the south caused by what I perceive as a dusting of snow.

Funny thing, I did the same thing when Sandy hit New York. Poor babies, hit by a weak tropical storm, and they're carrying on like it was the end of the world...

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[AthanasiusKircher]

As another poster said, this isn't fair. Lots of us drive with winter tires, I doubt anyone down there has even heard of them.

While this is true, winter tires still don't do much if there's 1/2" to an inch of ice on the road, as there was in some parts of the South yesterday and this morning. And even if they have salt -- which they often don't -- there was too much ice to keep up the melting.

A few inches of snow is not a big deal if you're used to driving it and have proper tires. However, I've lived in many different parts of the U.S., and an inch of ice is enough to shut down things in most places -- north or south.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the largest hurricane (and it still had hurricane force winds when it hit New York) ever recorded in the North Atlantic? Yeah, "poor babies".

Re: Where I live, that's normal weather

[Anonymous Coward]

New York City uses garbage trucks as snowplows.

That's because that city and all who live there are pieces of Garbage.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[Webcommando]

Americans need to toughen up. Cancelling work and school because of a bit of ice and snow?

Never underestimate just how much of a mess what we call a small amount of snow can cause in a place which doesn't normally have to deal with it.

I have always lived in the mid-west. Actually, most of it in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Wisconsin, and went to school up on Lake Superior. Driving in snow and ice should be second nature to us.

However, I see the same behavior up north at the beginning of winter. Some people who are use to driving full speed all summer and fall suddenly have a hard time dealing with the snow...and these are people who grew up in these areas. It takes a little time for many to get their "snow legs". Obviously, this isn't everyone and you would expect people to think a little before jumping in the car the first time... but it happens anyway.

Re: Where I live, that's normal weather

[Anonymous Coward]

A chip on the shoulder generally means there's wood up above. Just sayin'.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[Nos.]

Winter tires make a huge difference on ice.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[Rakarra]

It's the same look I get when I complain to my store managers in Florida about it being oppressively hot in Boston when it's 'only' 96 degrees in August

Yeah, but is it a dry or humid heat? Where I like 96 degrees is hot, but it wouldn't be unbearably hot (except to seniors I suppose), but we don't deal with the humidity like the east and southeast gets.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[stdarg]

In the part of Raleigh, NC where I live, the majority of people (including me) are from up north. I'm from Minnesota. I know a lot of people from Pennsylvania and New York. We all understand snow.

But northern drivers are some of the worst drivers in the South, because they have absolutely no idea what they're getting into and they're cocky as hell. They see a light dusting of snow and say "haha" and go. Well that light dusting of snow melted when it hit the warm road surface, then it kept snowing and cooled down the road, then it froze and kept snowing a bit more. Now you have a light dusting of snow over a solid sheet of ice that you can't see.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[david_thornley]

It was wintry mix, complete with 1/4 thick sheets of solid ice on all the roads that formed as people were trying to get home.

Speaking as an experienced native Minnesotan...

Stay off that stuff if you can possibly stay home. It's virtually impossible to drive safely on that crap. (Sometimes experience allows you to do a difficult thing better. Sometimes it just tells you when to give up and wait things out.)

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[mjwx]

your forefathers who blazed the trails to the west and through the mountains must be spinning like tops in their graves

I've always admired the way our forefathers dealt with this sort of thing - like the Donner party.

I always wondered what was in a Donner Kebab.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[khallow]

Here in Eastern Massachusetts, we do get hit by hurricanes as well.

And there we go. What you neglected to mention is that eastern Massachusetts is a clusterfuck when those infrequent hurricanes come by.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[khallow]

and it still had hurricane force winds when it hit New York

Whoa. "Still had hurricane force winds." That's pretty "large". As to the "largest" hurricane, there are a number of similar sized storms, stretching back to the 50s, when they first could measure these things by that spatial dimension.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[khallow]

Mississippi and Florida were quite prepared for Hurricane Katrina. Louisiana is a special case and New Orleans is special even for that state.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[Anonymous Coward]

"Still had hurricane force winds." That's pretty "large".

Wind speed has nothing to do with the storm's size. That was a response to CrimsonAvenger's comment that it was "a weak tropical storm", when it obviously wasn't.

Re:Where I live, that's normal weather

[khallow]

Ok, I'll grant that was a ridiculous understatement. But wind speed does matter. Else you're doing touchie feelie "it looks this big on the satellite image".

HAARP to push carbon taxes

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a conspiracy theory that HAARP can move the jetstream, that is what it was designed to do. It can create a huge bubble in the ionosphere 40 miles high by heating it, and they can aim where they do it.

Re:HAARP to push carbon taxes

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a conspiracy theory that HAARP can move the jetstream, that is what it was designed to do. It can create a huge bubble in the ionosphere 40 miles high by heating it, and they can aim where they do it.

Uhh, yeah it is, dipshit.

Shine any laser pointers on aircraft to stop them from "chemtrailing" you?

Re:HAARP to push carbon taxes

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhh, no it is not, asshole.

Re:HAARP to push carbon taxes

[Anonymous Coward]

Chemtrail patents:
http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/an-extensive-list-of-patents/

Scientists openly discussing geoengineering and "Solar Radiation Management (SMR) approach, which involves reflecting sunlight to space."
http://www.aaas.org/news/researchers-discuss-understudied-geoengineering-approaches-climate-change

Re:HAARP to push carbon taxes

[ArcadeMan]

reflecting sunlight to space

A preemptive strike against the machines, eh?

Re:HAARP to push carbon taxes

[Rakarra]

Yes it is, just like almost anything else you'll hear on Art Bell's comedy show.

You southerns are a bunch of wimps.

[jellomizer]

The storm just started hitting the east coast this morning and we already have more snow then you guys, while there are a lot of school closings there are still a bunch open, and heck I am still at work today too...

Sure it sucks, but you just kinda deal with it. I though that was the red state motto?

Re:You southerns are a bunch of wimps.

[TheRaven64]

Bad weather isn't a problem, unexpected bad weather is. Where I used to live (in the UK, so no red vs blue today), we had one day of snow pretty much every year. The city council decided to be very cautious and ensured that they had enough salt and grit available to keep the roads clear if they had a one-week snowfall. One year, we had two weeks of solid snowfall and temperatures below freezing and the whole place ground to a halt. Meanwhile, places a bit further north were fine because they typically had snow all winter and so had prepared for it. Now, you could argue that my council should have prepared for the snow better, but in the 10 years that I lived there I only saw more than one day a year of snow that one winter - maintaining the equipment reserves to handle it every year would have been expensive and you can bet people would have complained about the waste of taxpayers' money.

Re:You southerns are a bunch of wimps.

[Anonymous Coward]

On the same note, you northerners handled hurricane Sandy (cat-2 @ northeast) like wimps. Just wear some boots next time.

Re:You southerns are a bunch of wimps.

[bickerdyke]

But during that week that they were prepared for, they had the chance to order additional salt and grit. At a higher price, of course, but still. While keeping a 2 weeks stock all years may not be worth it, a week (at least down here) would be enough to pull additional stuff from the next step in the supply chain, if forcast indicates so.

Re:You southerns are a bunch of wimps.

[elrous0]

No kidding. Here in FL, that would barely have qualified as a rainstorm

Re:You southerns are a bunch of wimps.

[Anonymous Coward]

As often and as thoroughly as this attitude has been shown to be utterly and wholly ignorant, you are either trolling, or you suffer from a degree of stupid so profound that it should be named.

Re:You southerns are a bunch of wimps.

[TheRaven64]

Not really. How many people do you think can deliver tons of salt and grit (in quantities of a factor of ten more than they normally sell you) at a few days notice, in unusually bad weather? And if you find someone, then you have to distribute it (something that's usually done in the summer, when the roads are clear and you can put it in strategic locations where the gritting trucks can easily collect it.

Re:You southerns are a bunch of wimps.

[bickerdyke]

That's what those companies are specialized in.

Few cities could stock the material needed for a normal winter. So re-stocking during a winter is the norm. Only at higher prices (which evens out during warmer winters) and slower than in summer. But that's what you've got your inital stockpile for: Cover for the first week or so until roads are clear enough to get the restocking rolling.

That's definitly the way how it's handled here, just saw a documentation about it a few weeks ago. Companies can definitly deliver salt and grids during the winter. Perhaps not during days 1-3 of a fresh snowstorm, but in calmer conditions between them.

Re:You southerns are a bunch of wimps.

[RabidReindeer]

No kidding. Here in FL, that would barely have qualified as a rainstorm

I've flown out of town in the feeder band of an oncoming hurricane and in the teeth of a Florida thunderstorm. The hurricane was the less turbulent ride.

Re:You southerns are a bunch of wimps.

[jellomizer]

Oblig XKCD

Re:You southerns are a bunch of wimps.

[quetwo]

JIT logistics are fine for manufactured goods, but for minerals and other things that you have to mine out of the ground, it is not possible. For things like salt, you place your order in the spring for next winter -- they then dig it out of the ground and deliver it to you sometime in the summer. Once the ground is frozen they can't dig it out anymore and the supply that is in the chain is all that there is.

Sure, some places keep some spare around, but if every city thinks they can just order it on a whim there won't be enough supply. The midwest (USA) has run out of salt for a couple weeks now. This winter was much harsher than everybody expected and they were expecting about 10 - 15 storm days this season (days of active snowing/icing) -- we've had over 30 this year alone. All the stores are out of salt and the community supplies are done.

Re:You southerns are a bunch of wimps.

[hermitdev]

A short (but interesting) read over at National Geographic about history of road salt. From the article, it takes about 10-14 days for a reorder of salt.

Re:You southerns are a bunch of wimps.

[Attila Dimedici]

A couple of points. Hurricane Sandy was not bad because of its wind strength or because of the amount of rain it put down. The problem was how much area it covered. Most of the areas devastated by Hurricane Sandy would have done OK if it hadn't caused serious damage on the areas where they normally draw emergency support from as well. The second point is that the people who were devastated by Hurricane Sandy are not the one's making fun of the way the South is handling this winter storm, because they are busy digging out of the the same storm and understand that it is a pretty nasty thing to deal with.

Re:You southerns are a bunch of wimps.

[mrchaotica]

I'm from Atlanta, and once vacationed (in Florida) in a category 2 hurricane.

Re:You southerns are a bunch of wimps.

[xaxa]

You missed the point: this was southern Britain, where most cities can keep all the salt/grit they need in a few heaps somewhere. It might snow once or twice, maybe 1-5cm. It hasn't snowed so far this winter.

When it snowed for two weeks, across the whole island, every city, town and village wanted more grit, and there wasn't enough available. Why would the grit-selling company have a 5 year supply on hand?

(Colleagues described the weather today is "bloody freezing". It was 10C. YMMV.)

Re:You southerns are a bunch of wimps.

[Anonymous Coward]

Once the ground is frozen they can't dig it out anymore and the supply that is in the chain is all that there is.

A bit of frozen ground is not going to impact salt mining in even the most miniscule way, unless you count people wearing warmer jackets on their way to the mine shaft.

Average -20C day in Canada

[WormholeFiend]

-30C with the wind chill.

Re:Average -20C day in Canada

[eclectro]

Average -20C day in Canada

Yes. But it is a "dry cold."

Re: Average -20C day in Canada

[WormholeFiend]

Knock it off

Re: Average -20C day in Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

Would have given you "Funny" too, but ran out of mod points.

Best "Aliens" reference I've seen for a while :)

Sorry... Not a big deal...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, not a big deal, we get winter storms up here in NY all the time... not a big deal. Plows clear road. throw salt down. problem solved. Panic is only reserved if we are hit with 2+ feet of snow. Not a couple of inches.

Re:Sorry... Not a big deal...

[SJHillman]

I'm also in NY. I've lived in Central, Upstate and now Western NY. Without the plows and salt trucks, 90% of the people here wouldn't fare much better than those in Georgia. Why don't they have that equipment? You try explaining to taxpayers that they need to buy and maintain millions of dollars worth of equipment for a scenario that might not happen. It's the same reason we don't have a whole lot of equipment to handle hurricanes or earthquakes here. Sure, it could happen, but it's rare enough that it's not worth the money to put in a whole lot of preparation.

Re:Sorry... Not a big deal...

[tompaulco]

Sorry, but in the south, snow is not a big deal either. Plows can plow snow, and cars can drive reasonably well in snow. The problem is that in the south, ice is at least as frequent an occurrence as snow. Winter storms often occur during a temperature inversion, meaning we have warm (above freezing anyway) humid air aloft and below freezing air at ground level. Precipitation falls as rain, and depending on the temperature of the rain and the height and temperature of the ground level air, it will either fall as sleet, or worse, as rain which freezes on impact. We often have 1/4" or more of freezing rain. I have seen greater than an inch of freezing rain in the past. In my state, we have had freezing rain three times this winter, and we have had snow twice. Snow is not a big deal for cars, and plows can remove it. Ice is crappy to drive on and plowing is useless.

Re:Sorry... Not a big deal...

[RabidReindeer]

I'm also in NY. I've lived in Central, Upstate and now Western NY. Without the plows and salt trucks, 90% of the people here wouldn't fare much better than those in Georgia. Why don't they have that equipment? You try explaining to taxpayers that they need to buy and maintain millions of dollars worth of equipment for a scenario that might not happen. It's the same reason we don't have a whole lot of equipment to handle hurricanes or earthquakes here. Sure, it could happen, but it's rare enough that it's not worth the money to put in a whole lot of preparation.

Something nobody seems to be taking into consideration. Most equipment will suffer as much or more from not being used as it will from being used. In Atlanta, a fleet of heavy snow equipment would likely as not be half-deteriorated by the time it was next needed. And it's hard to persuade the taxpayers that you need to pay for all that servicing in normal years winter is simply the season when you switch the A/C off.

Re:Sorry... Not a big deal...

[clarkn0va]

I think our boys in the UK already solved this problem.

Its not that bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

FFS people, its snow. Not a nuclear meltdown. Man up.

Re:Its not that bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless the snow comes from the Pacific ocean...

Re:Its not that bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

If we actually got snow, it wouldn't have been a problem. Instead, we got enough freezing rain glazing everything to drop whole trees on houses, power lines, and roads.

Re:Its not that bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

FFS people, its snow. Not a nuclear meltdown. Man up.

Uh, no. it's ice.
Seriously now, do you not know the difference between ice and snow, or do you have a reading comprehension problem?

Alright, which one of you

[Anonymous Coward]

left the snow 3D printer on?

Al Gore...

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone buy more carbon credits so the snow will stop!

Re:Al Gore...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it that the deniers can always find the cold spots and use them as "evidence", but the warm spots never seem to come up?

If you're a denier, and stupid enough to believe that the temperature outside your door is the proof of AGW, go to this forbidden link:

http://www.weather.com/news/al...

Warning, you may suffer a cognitive dissonance attack and utterly reject the truth again.

Re:Al Gore...

[Anonymous Coward]

Climate is always changing. AGW has been completely debunked by the NIPCC reports... go to this forbidden link:

http://www.nipccreport.org

Warning, you may suffer a congnitive dissonance attack and utterly reject the truth again.

Re:Al Gore...

[Anonymous Coward]

Authored by the Heartland Institute... LoL... Do you accept every piece of disinformation they put out, or only the stuff you agree with?

Re:Al Gore...

[Anonymous Coward]

You KNOW that reversing the situation, Gore, Hanson and legions of Slashdot Warming whores would be proclaiming it as proof of AGW.

Meanwhile in Finland

[jones_supa]

+1C, all snow soon melted away.

Re:Meanwhile in Finland

[Anonymous Coward]

Good, we will send you our rednecks

Re:Meanwhile in Finland

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but to be fair that's 274K. *Nothing* can withstand that temperature.

Re:Meanwhile in Finland

[mjwx]

+1C, all snow soon melted away.

Australia, +35C.

What is this snow thing you're talking about?

Loading ad interstatial...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Looks like Slashdot's newest experiment is to pop an ad before you get to the article. Looks like I'll have that disabled in 5...4...3..

Re:Loading ad interstatial...

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of trying things like beta (fuck that), perhaps the powers that be here ought to communicate how best people who run adblock and want to remain anonymous can still contribute to the site. E.g., do they have ads that qualify for Ad block's "non intrusive" list?

Is there something where I just need to whitelist a particular "slashdot.org/*jpg" (assuming it can't get hacked into a moving ".gif" or something)? Or would it be "doubleclick*randomaccount*jpg"?

I could also mention problems with the ToS that likely extend to subscriptions too.

HOW THE FUCK IS THIS NEWS FOR NERDS?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless this affects data centers or affects the computer and electronic technology in someway then it should not be on the fucking front page of $lashdot. Between $lashdot beta and this shit Dice Holdings, who is turning Sourceforge into another Crap-Net "Digital Domain" filled with malware infested downloads of open-source software, is turning $lashdot into the crappy mainstream news outlet like Faux News, Crap News Network, M$NBC, etc. $lashdot and $ourceforge will go the way of hobbyists, beaten down by the sheep in society which are like the jocks in High School with the hoobyists/Nerds being beaten down the jocks in high school. Goodbye $lashdot, it was nice knowing you in your former glory, news for us nerds, not for the mindless sheeple in society.

Re:HOW THE FUCK IS THIS NEWS FOR NERDS?!?

[hcs_$reboot]

Probably /. expects some people to correlate this snow event with global warming, climate changes etc... Because that storm is rather special..

Re:HOW THE FUCK IS THIS NEWS FOR NERDS?!?

[VanessaE]

Maybe because this falls squarely under the "stuff that matters" part of the old tagline?

It's not the same

[yelvington]

I lived through 14 Minnesota winters, and after a similar period in the South, I can say they're really not similar.

Southern pines are spectacular, much taller than those typical in Minnesota, because they can grow for years without being beaten down by the weather. When once in a decade or so they get coated with ice, the result is chaos -- whole trees snapping five feet above ground, crashing through attics into living rooms, tearing down power lines along the way. It sounds like cannon fire echoing through the woods.

The problems of winter hitting the South are not limited to lack of equipment, preparation, or winter driving skills. Nature just isn't ready for it.

Re:It's not the same

[DarkOx]

I have spent alot of years both in Minneapolis and in Wilkesboro NC. There is nothing similar about the winters. MN does not get icing like they do in the South except on very very rare occasions because its always cold in MN winter. The precip comes down as snow and it stays snow. MN has the interesting property that the snow gets deeper and deeper because it never melts, which cause load problems on roof tops and like but the snow mostly shakes out of trees and finds its way to the ground before it does them any harm.

Both places have their winter weather challenges but they are very different.

Re:It's not the same

[Anonymous Coward]

Wilkesboro NC - I spent a few years there. Loved and miss it.

Re:It's not the same

[mistapotta]

This. When the ground temps hover around 40F, the snow melts quite easily. Then the air temps get in the 20's and water refreezes on the road. The ice is much more dangerous than the snow. That's why we close schools, businesses, etc.

And it's not the dusting that we get annually. We can handle that. It's when we get 2-3 inches of precipitation that forms ice on our roads that makes it dangerous. We don't drive with bags of kitty litter in our trunks, or just whip out our chains when it gets dangerous. So we shut down. If its orchestrated well, it's a fun holiday we can all laugh about afterwards (See "The Snow" from San Antonio, 1985. If it's not orchestrated well, well...

We can all complain how people in other regions can't handle unconventional weather - Hurricanes in New York (don't build where it floods), 100F+ temps in the Midwest (install air conditioners), Snow in the deep south (buy more snowplows, chains, salt, sand, etc.) Yes, there are solutions that make the situations tenable. No, the capital investment for an event that happens every xx years isn't worth the financial losses from shutting down the city for the time it takes to deal with the situation.

Re:It's not the same

[Anonymous Coward]

Nature just isn't ready for it?

Hey, Nature - DEAL WITH IT!

Re:It's not the same

[tomhath]

A friend of mine said something similar about Kansas, where he was from. The wind is always blowing there, so limbs break off as soon as they get weak instead of building up for years and all coming down in one storm. Of course in Kansas they don't have many trees anyway.

Re:It's not the same

[gfxguy]

I want to echo this sentiment - I'm transplanted from NY, eventually ended up in Atlanta, GA. I drove many winters in NY, and being the youngest of four I learned a lot from my parents and older siblings about driving in the snow. I can tell you that no matter where you grew up, how great a driver you think you are, or what vehicle you have, driving on solid ice is not just difficult, it's treacherous. Add in all the hills we have around here, and you're really screwed.

Now; first "snowpocalypse" from two weeks ago: it started snowing mid-morning. Around noon, people realized they'd better start getting home. By 12:30, the roads were ICY (not snowy); it's very hilly around here and many vehicles couldn't make it up hills. This caused massive gridlock; even people with 4WD, AWD, and yes, FWD that could have made it were stuck in the gridlock anyway. This all happened before the local and state governments could react... there were vehicles out salting and sanding, but they didn't get a chance to hit even a fraction of the roads. The traffic map on the GA511 website went from green to black in a half hour. Yes, I largely blame ignorant drivers who don't know what to do... all those mid-level pickups and sports and luxury cars with rear wheel drive, just sitting there spinning their tires (they didn't realize after a few seconds it just wasn't working? Unbelievable). The number of idiots trying the same things over and over again, getting worse and worse results was baffling. Once I got past a few gridlocked areas I made it home just fine with my FWD car... but the way I get out of the city is largely level once I'm away from the mid town area. Other interstates aren't so "lucky," virtually everywhere there was a hill there was gridlock. And yes, while I blame the drivers, the "pros" were no better - the biggest problems I encountered were buses and trucks which, when they spun out, blocked the entire road.

Fast forward to this time, and all the gun-shy drivers just stayed home. Up in North Carolina they experienced the same problem this time that GA felt last time, and I won't belittle them about it. In GA, with everyone warned to stay home, the service vehicles are able to salt and sand the major roads. I want to make this clear - people didn't know last time how bad it would be, the storm was supposed to pass to the south and it shifted north. Even when it started snowing it was not icy, it was just snow... it just didn't last long. Everyone from schools, to private and government employees all left at the same time, when they realized it wasn't going to let up. A lot of people blame the government... I don't. They had trucks ready, it was just a bad confluence of events and eventualities that led to a bad situation. There was really nothing they could do. Even the supposed idea of staggered release times (first schools, then private businesses, then government) is ridiculous - and it's the fault of the people, not the government, because as soon as schools get released, everyone tries to rush home to beat the traffic, it's just the way people are (not all of us, obviously, I waited until late evening to even try to leave).

The other BIG difference between this and last time - and this is how it usually is - the problems didn't start until Tuesday NIGHT, which means most people were already home from work. When it hits mid-day, people are already at work and screwed. Usually these accumulations happen over night, we wake up, and say "snow day!"

It's like any other weather event; they can be unpredictable and catch people off guard. It's just the way it is sometimes... sometimes the best laid plans work, sometimes they don't.

Re:It's not the same

[rvw]

....tearing down power lines along the way....

This is something I don't understand. The USA - the technically most advanced country - still is not able to put powerlines underground. Why??? I can understand that this is too expensive over long distances, but in cities and small towns?

Re:It's not the same

[mjr167]

The last storm the warnings were issued at 3AM, well before most people got up and went to work... The government and school systems had plenty of time to close the school and simply chose not to. Getting out of bed before the ass crack of dawn was apparently too much effort for the officials to prevent "snowpocalypse" and now we get to watch them do their darnedest to not look like idiots a second time for the same reasons.

We've been watching this current storm for days with no one able to say for sure it would hit us or pass just east of us. We still managed to close the schools this morning when mother nature finally made up her mind and decided to include us. Our school officials managed to get the fuck out of bed at 3AM to look at the radar and the forecasts and close the schools. They have managed to close the schools before when it is bright and sunny in the morning but by noon the storm hits and ices everything. They do that by watching the radar and listening to the warnings.

If the snow starts at 12AM or 12PM it doesn't matter. You still get to see it coming hours in advance. On the gulf coast they don't wait for the hurricane to make landfall to start making preparations. You also don't wait for the snow and ice to hit the streets before doing something about it. The idea that if it's sunny at 7AM means the day will be fine when the radar clearly tells you otherwise is insane.

Re:It's not the same

[CrimsonAvenger]

Well, in New Orleans, it's not done because if you dig down as much as a foot, you hit the water table....

Re:It's not the same

[pr0fessor]

That is Hollywood's version of Kansas. Yes western Kansas is mostly farm land and some of it is very desolate and empty but the eastern half were most of the population is has rolling hills with trees {not forests} between the moderate to small sized cities. The wind does not blow enough to keep me from needing to trim the more than a dozen trees in my yard and on my property line. {I was worried that if I didn't the first snow/ice storm this winter was going to cause a lot of breakage possibly a little home damage}

Kansas get's a variety of weather like damaging hail, high winds, snow storms, ice storms, rain, floods, tornadoes, temperatures below 0f in the winter and above 100f in the summer. All very common but not as common as the really nice days in the 60-70s during the spring and fall.

I have a co-worker in our Atlanta office that's originally from Kansas, he said he doesn't think they get very much practice driving in snow there he took all back roads to work in the hope that he wouldn't need to deal with any traffic. You know what they say, practice makes perfect, and 2 months with 1-2 feet of snow and ice a year affords you a lot of practice time.

Re:It's not the same

[dcw3]

Our neighborhood (D.C. suburb) does have buried lines. The builder here had to blast bedrock when putting in the homes, so I'm sure the underground utilities weren't a simple matter of running a backhoe through. And, while having them buried is esthetically pleasing, it hasn't spared us from power or cable outages. And, I have the added disadvantage of having my lawn painted by all the utility companies whenever a neighbor decides they need to dig.

Re:It's not the same

[AthanasiusKircher]

I want to make this clear - people didn't know last time how bad it would be, the storm was supposed to pass to the south and it shifted north.

I don't want to rehash arguments that everyone had a couple of weeks ago, but the National Weather Service alerts began shifting the area of winter weather "advisory" to metro Atlanta the day before. They declared a "Winter Storm Warning" at 3:38 AM the day of the storm, which told everyone that dangerous road conditions were coming to metro Atlanta.

Thus, there was actually at least eight or nine hours of warning before anything started falling from the sky in Atlanta.

Don't get me wrong: I know some people probably didn't pay attention to that before their morning commute, and didn't realize that things had shifted. So, I can understand how your average person might have missed something. But schools and governments have no excuse -- with an ice storm coming that close to a major city, they should have been paying close attention in the night before the storm. They had enough time to cancel school and warn people to consider staying home. They did not.

Re:It's not the same

[clarkn0va]

There is nothing similar about the winters.

That makes sense to me. I live in northern Alberta, and while we're all used to driving on ice and snow for 6 months of the year, it's the rare snow in June that does the most damage. We had around 2m of snow between late October and mid January this year, and I can't think of a tree that took damage due to the weight. By contrast, we had one rare snowfall in June last year and trees were snapping all over the place; power went out. It wasn't the snow that got them per se, it was the fact that the snow was warm and heavy and the trees still had their leaves on.

Snow tires make a huge difference, but surveys have shown that most Canadians don't even use them (outside of Quebec where they are legally mandated). I'm sure that was a factor in these southern snow storms, but probably not on the same scale as everybody leaving work at the same time. If we can learn anything from this, it's to take heed when the experts tell you to stay home, don't panic when the snow starts to fly, and keep some extra food and fuel at home for the inevitables.

Re:It's not the same

[mrchaotica]

The last storm the warnings were issued at 3AM, well before most people got up and went to work... The government and school systems had plenty of time to close the school and simply chose not to. Getting out of bed before the ass crack of dawn was apparently too much effort for the officials to prevent "snowpocalypse" and now we get to watch them do their darnedest to not look like idiots a second time for the same reasons.

As an Atlantan and an engineer who used to work in a position where, if I were still there, I'd be among those responsible for managing the emergency, I have to say you're exactly right. I looked at the forecast on the afternoon the day before and knew damn well to stay home that day!

Re:It's not the same

[Chris Mattern]

I can understand that this is too expensive over long distances, but in cities and small towns?

In cities and small towns...it can be even more expensive. Digging things up to lay power lines is expensive anywhere, and it only gets worse if you have to do it somewhere that already built up. And instead of losing power to snow, you get to lose power to floods, to faulty cabling (tougher to inspect power cables underground), to some idiot with a backhoe...

Re:It's not the same

[cmdr_klarg]

100F+ temps in the Midwest (install air conditioners)

Not exactly unusual in the Midwest. Gotta love MN with a 150F temperature range...

Re:It's not the same

[Anonymous Coward]

We can and do put power lines underground, but it's a messy process to take existing overhead lines and move them underground. It's about $10,000 per house too.

Re:It's not the same

[Charcharodon]

Nearly all the new developments have the lines underground, but refitting the older places is money wasted. There is the other nasty side of making that not feasible is getting the easements to put the lines underground. Just because the power company has an easement to string power lines across a property does not mean they have an easement to burry it. The eminent domain fights alone would bankrupt any city/county or electric company that tried to do so and would give property rights proponents untold amounts of court cases that would dropping at the same time to completely undo decades worth of eminent domain abuse that had previously gone on one at a time below the radar.

Power grid

[NapalmV]

It continuously amazes me that people would easily pay in excess of 50k in order to get the largest SUVs ever, yet they would fight teeth and nails against an one time 3k fee to get their power lines buried. The SUVs have been proven useless during the ice storms, while having electrical power was proven to be priceless.

Re:Power grid

[SJHillman]

I'd like to see your citation for burying power lines to be a "one time 3k fee". Especially in cities and similar built-up areas that are the most affected. You'd also need to bury the transformers and all of the other gear currently on poles and any other points of failure. And then when you do need to do maintenance on those buried lines, the cost of unburying and reburying them is still significant. The much more economical option is to simply get your own backup source of power, be it a generator, wind or solar - whichever suits your anticipated situation best.

Re:Power grid

[geekoid]

3k per person is , generally, about right as an overall average.

"he much more economical option is to simply get your own backup source of power,"
not really.
A backup to completely run all appliances as if you had normal power for a week is more then 3 K

Re: Power grid

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like to see his citation of everyone clamoring to buy 50k SUVs. I drive a paid-for Ford Ranger and it was only $15k brand new with 0% interest.

Re:Power grid

[tompaulco]

It continuously amazes me that people would easily pay in excess of 50k in order to get the largest SUVs ever, yet they would fight teeth and nails against an one time 3k fee to get their power lines buried. The SUVs have been proven useless during the ice storms, while having electrical power was proven to be priceless.

I can pay to bury my power lines, but I can't control whether the lines are buried beyond my property. My lines are buried at my house. In fact, in the only two extended outages I have ever been involved in, the power lines were buried. At my current house, the lines are buried, but the utilities lines past my house are not, and an ice storm caused branches to come down. Because this was a widespread outage affecting hundred of thousands of people, it took about 3 days to get the power back on.
At my previous residence, my power AND the utilities power lines were buried. We had a severe thunderstorm which knocked out the power to us, but not the power to the people right across the street, who were on a different grid and had overhead lines. Even though this was not a widespread outage, it took a long time to repair because the lines were buried. It was three or four days before the power was back on.
I'm not all that impressed by buried lines. It is cosmetically better, but much more expensive from an installation and maintenance perspective and the uptime is negatively rather than positively affected. Studies have shown that while you are 50% less likely to experience a power loss with underground wires, the repair time when it happens is almost 60% longer. Also, it has been determine that underground wiring degrades faster. 40 year old above ground wiring has been found to be more reliable than 20 year old underground wiring.

Re:Power grid

[SJHillman]

You obviously wouldn't expect a backup to power *everything*. My parents' backup generator is enough to run the main set of lights, and the refrigerator, freezer or dryer (although probably not all at once... but they're rarely all running at once anyway) and some of the more common appliances like the computers or TVs... in other words, all of the essentials and a fair number of luxuries. It was about $1200 and has an expected lifetime of ten to twenty years before it should need any serious maintenance costs (they're about five years in now). Until I see an actual citation that's more than "What he said", I have a hard time believing that burying all of the lines would be cheaper than that.

Re:Power grid

[Anonymous Coward]

Remarkably how someone lacking even the most basic google search skills can be modded up high in the sky for not doing his homework.
 
  Here's the cost estimate (done by Hydro company itself) for a very expensive job in a dense city:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ice-storm-fallout-can-t-power-lines-go-underground-1.2490392

15billion dollars / 2.5 million people -> 6k per person.

I'll let you do the googling for cost in suburban / rural area and a total average.

Re:Power grid

[SJHillman]

I should have used that line with my professors. "I shouldn't need to cite my papers, you have access to Google!"

Besides, your link says nothing about it being a "one-time fee", which is a key part of the original AC's argument. It does, however, say there would be a 300% rate increase, which would imply it's the exact opposite of a "one-time fee". In other words, you have done the opposite of providing relevant supporting information for the claims of a "one time 3k fee".

Your own article goes on to cite other issues with burying lines from a previous project, including being sued by residents and lack of space among the existing sewage, water, fiber, and gas lines... and that was in a residential area. It also mentions having to bury switch boxes that need more than four cubic meters of space, another huge issue. And all that is before you even consider maintenance costs. The main conclusion of the article is that it makes a little bit of sense if you're building new lines, but it makes very little sense to replace existing lines... and this is in Toronto no less, where it would seem to make much more sense in general than in a place like Atlanta that only sees winter once or twice a decade.

Re:Power grid

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not an examination this is an argument. "I don't believe what you're saying" is not a proper counter-argument. If you don't believe then do your own research, if you find a counter-proof please post it, otherwise just continue reading.
 
BTW it is pretty much irrelevant if you charge the cost as a one time fee or as a smaller recurring fee. The exercise was to find a credible estimate for the cost. I've pointed you to an estimate by the power company in the most expensive situation (dense, big, old city). If you found conflicting info, please post a link. Otherwise STFU.

Re:Power grid

[CrimsonAvenger]

3k per person is , generally, about right as an overall average.

So, a trillion dollars to do the whole USA, then?

Yeah, we'll get right on that.

Re:Power grid

[NapalmV]

Yeah, to put it in perspective it's less than 1/16th of a bankers bailout:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tr...
.

Re:Power grid

[sycodon]

1. I don't pay $50k for any vehicle.
2. If I did, it would be my choice. This "one time" fee would be imposed on me whether I wanted it or not.
3. Clearly, you are buying the wrong SUV.

Re:Power grid

[NapalmV]

Those figures were mentioned recently in the press, without quoting a source for them. Most likely they pulled them out of a hat. These gentlemen got to a different conclusion:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0957178711000622
.

Re:Power grid

[NapalmV]

May I also understand that the price/kW you're currently paying is also entirely of your choice? Or that, at a minimum, you have negotiated it with the power company?

Re:Power grid

[tompaulco]

I got them off of a study done by South Carolina Electrical.

Re:Power grid

[NapalmV]

The book's summary mentions a dataset from "163 US electric utilities". While South Carolina may be different, the book gets to the result that, on average, burying the lines would shorten both downtime and repair time.

Wintry

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I found the name for the next Linux Distribution that has Wine installed by default.

oh yeah?

[Anonymous Coward]

How'd you guys do with that last hurricane?

Re:oh yeah?

[elrous0]

In all fairness, it was a *CATEGORY 2* hurricane. Ooooooh! LOL!

Gov Christie weighs in (at 300 lbs heh)

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA:

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie struck a similar tone.

"I think what you can anticipate is it might be a day to stay inside and stay warn," he said. "And not worry about traveling around the roads too much. I want people to stay safe."

Yeah, you wouldn't want to be stuck on a bridge for many hours while emergency vehicles are unable to get to the hospital.

Rare?

[CodeArtisan]

I have lived in Connecticut for 17 years. There is nothing rare about the amount of snow that is falling today. It doesn't happen every week, but 12 inches (or whatever we are going to get today) is not exactly Biblical. Mild winters are the rare events.

Some real winners there

[Pope]

Kathy Davies Muzzey of Wilmington, N.C., said she hid the car keys from her husband, John, on Tuesday night because he was thinking about driving to Chapel Hill for the Duke-UNC basketball game. He has missed only two games between the rivals since he left school in the late 1960s.

Yeah, driving in a snow storm for a fucking college basketball game. Good to see people's priorities are straight!

Soo Keith of Raleigh left work about a little after noon, thinking she would have plenty of time to get home before the worst of the snow hit.

Instead, Keith, who is three months pregnant, drove a few miles in about two hours and decided to park and start walking, wearing dress shoes and a coat that wouldn’t zip over her belly.

Do people not read the news or weather forecasts or something?

Re:Some real winners there

[elrous0]

Do people not read the news or weather forecasts or something?

Unfortunately, some people's jobs force them to go in, even in a blizzard.

Re:Some real winners there

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who always has to show up to work, regardless of the strength of the hurricane hitting, and cannot bring my wife and kid with me, I know the feeling.

YoU Fail It...

[Anonymous Coward]

the fruitless Romeo and Juliet number of FreeBSD would you like to our chances problem; a few polite to bring AND AS BSD SINKS numbers continue Claim that BSD is a at this point to any BSD project, BSD culminated in from the OpenBSD these rules will SHOW THAT FREEBSD least of which is metadiscussions Juliet Are together simple solution 'doing something' of reality. Keep to deliver what, the top. Or were, play parties the perspective, the dim. Due to the Volatile world of around are in need JOIN THE GNAA!! on an endeavour is busy infighting has ground to a result of a quarrel working on various prima donnas, and and sold in the unless you can work Little-known Lube. This can lead

Re:YoU Fail It...

[jones_supa]

This weird BSD spam has been around for something like a decade already.

Here in Baltimore

[scorp1us]

We got a light, dry snow over night. Its now lightly raining, packing the top layer. If you haven't started shoveling, do it now before it gets too heavy. I've got about 14" and the top 3 are as heavy as than the bottom 11.

No ice yet, though its 31.

Re:Here in Baltimore

[oodaloop]

I'm in Northern Virginia. Similar weather here. Probably about 10-12" so far, all light. No rain yet though, thank FSM. I dug my Jeep out and drove around the block, but barely. Roads are plowed but the snow is coming down hard still and covering the roads.

Re:Here in Baltimore

[Anonymous Codger]

Silver Spring, here. Shovel now, like you suggest, and you'll have ice directly on the sidewalk and the car. Have fun with that! I'm waiting until it's over so the ice is on top of the snow where it's easy to remove.

Re:Here in Baltimore

[koreanbabykilla]

What kind of jeep do you have that 10 to 12 inches of snow/ice make it so you can barely make it around the block and have to dig it out? I'm guessing a very broken one. In my grand cherokee I wouldn't even notice 10 to 12 inches until I went to stop.
I dont dig it out even when I get plowed in with 3 feet. There are some fields around here with some pretty steep slopes that I go play on while covered in 2 to 3 feet and have 0 problems.

Re:Here in Baltimore

[oodaloop]

2007 4-door JK. I was plowed in and had to dig to get to the Jeep, then dig the snow out from under it that the plow pushed, then dig enough of the snow drift out so I could pull out of my space, as well as clear 12" of snow off the hood and roof (illegal to drive with snow on your car here). The roads were similarly plowed such that I had to drive over a snow drift to get out of my development. Roads are slick with packed snow. The Jeep does just fine (this is my fourth Wrangler in 20 years), but it's the other idiots I'd worry about. As for "playing in 3 feet of snow", this is why SUVs has higher insurance rates: stupid driving in them.

Re:Here in Baltimore

[burningcpu]

As a former Missouri resident, I suggest shoveling when you can as it's a lot easier to just lay down salt or other heating agent on the ice when it forms. If the snow is already gone, you won't need to shovel. If the snow is still there, the salt/whatever won't work well and you'll have to break up the ice/snow conglomerates, which is tough stuff.

Re:Here in Baltimore

[scorp1us]

You're call but we have round #2 coming with 4 more inches.

Re:Here in Baltimore

[NapalmV]

You can't really move a jeep through a gridlock no matter what model of jeep and tires you have. Check what happened in Atlanta the last round. It wasn't that cars couldn't get any traction. It was about several crash scenes that gridlocked the whole traffic.

Re:Here in Baltimore

[AthanasiusKircher]

Hope it works for you. With a foot of snow followed by rain and a refreeze, you're potentially looking at it packing down to a 3 inch thick layer of ice or more. That's nearly impossible to break apart... and if it stays cold, you could have days or weeks of a slippery sidewalk. Shovel it now, then periodically salt; everything stays clear. My rule is if I'm not certain it will melt within 24 hours or so, it's generally better to shovel. Or be prepared to wait until it all melts.

In Wisconsin...

[slashmydots]

It was -5F yesterday and we got about 4 inches of snow. Nothing closed, the roads were fine, traffic was fine, and I even went out to eat. I heard parts of the East coast were acting like it was WWIII because 2 inches of snow was coming and people were known to drive 5MPH through it. I think everyone out there just needs to grow some balls and learn how to drive. I believe WI got around 3-4 feet of snow this winter so far.

As for the power outage from a tiny amount of snow? Umm...you built it wrong. Last time we got 8 inches, one traffic light failed. That's it.

Re:In Wisconsin...

[SJHillman]

I live in New York, where it was also about -5F yesterday. And if we get two inches of snow before the plows get out, some people start driving 5MPH and thus slowing ALL traffic. And these are people who have lived in these conditions their entire lives. There's also the matter of southerners not having experience driving in snow any more than northerners are well prepared for going out in 115 degree summer heat.

As another poster mentioned, the power outages are sometimes caused by nature - in his example, it's because southern pines can grow so much taller due to the lack of regular winter... so when they do freeze and snap, it's a much larger tree coming down on the power lines. Power outages are almost never caused by the snow itself... usually either ice or the cold itself causing complications.

Re:In Wisconsin...

[mrchaotica]

In Atlanta, it can get over 100 degrees (with 100% humidity) in the summer. Nothing closes; people go about their business. When that happens in Wisconsin, people die. I think you Wisconsin folks are pussies because you can't deal with the heat!

Re:In Wisconsin...

[slashmydots]

Human beings cannot survive when the air temperature exceeds skin temperature because it elevates the core temperature...unless you're a lazy, sedentary fat ass whose metabolism puts off basically no heat aka southerners. You southerners adapted to be barely classified as alive so you don't overheat and you sweat and smell 10x worse than a northerner.

On the other hand, I shovel snow in a single layer white hanes undershirt and still sweat when it's 10 degrees outside. My metabolism adapted to simply burn calories for heat reasons, not movement, when necessary.

The difference is, you don't need to adapt physically to learn how to drive on 2 inches of snow. You just have to not be a moron. Unfortunately, Atlanta is a bunch of morons who can't figure out what traction and friction is or how a car works and thus we have the situation we're in.

Re:In Wisconsin...

[R3d M3rcury]

I live in New York, where it was also about -5F yesterday.

...and in LA, it's 72.

Re:In Wisconsin...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an ignorant, lying, filthy bigot. You are more like the stereotype of Southerners than any actual Southerner is. This makes you a hypocrite as well.

And no, you don't shovel snow in a T-shirt, and yes, everyone can tell that you're lying about that.

What the yankees don't realize

[MATTtheROGUE]

We never want the south to be prepared for snow. Having a day off (or being forced to work from home) is exactly why we panic when it snows.

you know you're old when...

[Thud457]

Monster lizard ravages east coast! Mayors in five New England cities have issued emergency requests for federal disaster relief as a result of a giant lizard that descended on the east coast last night! Officials say that this lizard, the worst since '78, has devastated transportation, disrupted communication, and left many hundreds homeless!

Re:you know you're old when...

[Frigga's Ring]

this lizard, the worst since '78

Ah, I see what you did there.

Global Warming .... Riiiiiight.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember these tards say that "its got to get colder to get warmer...." (the Warmists of course who Im talking about)

I swear when the revolution comes these tards will be staked outside in their underwear to bask in the sun. -- 2 days and they will all be dead of frostbite. READ a littkle and stop following those leftards who want you to surrender to them and their stupid hoax theories.

ELSE
All the other tards who are for destroying our energy infrastructure in the name of 'carbon bullshit' YOU will be at the bottom of the list to get any power that isnt 'solar' or 'windpowered' and will be thawed out and buried at the end of the first winter.

Dont forget your pal Algore still spouting his tripe (who was to make a billion off running a carbon credit speculation scam) he will be in prison for that fraud - wait and see.

Queue anti-global warming politicians and pundits

[Rick in China]

Now is when the Gohmerts of the US chime in: "Look, we're getting unnaturally cold fronts and snow storms! There is no global warming! Paahhhhhhhh." It's amusing how the ridiculously uninformed ignorant and lacking-any-scientific-understanding loud mouths in the US clam on to "warming" in the phrase global warming, and assume that indicators need to be related to heat. Maybe amusing isn't a good descriptor, sad may be better. Prepare to hear/read more of this in the coming days.

Re:Global Warming .... Riiiiiight.....

[fredrated]

Just one warning: when the food supplies collapse due to global warming, we will eat the deniers like you first.

Speaking as a New England resident

[Anonymous Coward]

This ain't all that big. We've had plenty of storms like this - and worse than this - over the years. It's just that ever news outlet wants a story, and that means making everything that happens sound like the end of the world.

ZOMG!!! SNOW!!!!

Ironically

[AJH16]

While my parents moved to NC to avoid the winters, they are getting hit hard and in upstate NY we are barely getting a dusting.

Re:Ironically

[RabidReindeer]

While my parents moved to NC to avoid the winters, they are getting hit hard and in upstate NY we are barely getting a dusting.

That's OK. It's been around 80 in Miami the last few weeks.

No, 80 is NOT normal even in Miami. There's almost a hard border somewhere just north of Daytona where the temperatures have been pretty consistently cold while the southern and central parts of the state are practically breaking out the swimsuits. Go north of that line and you drop 10 degrees before you hit Georgia, and then the temperature REALLY starts to fall.

Re:Ironically

[the eric conspiracy]

Yes, but the other 70000 times since they moved you were the one who got hammered.

I didn't know what snow squall was until I lived in Syracuse.

Re:Ironically

[AJH16]

Shh!!! Let me have my moment.

SPRING, WHERE ARE YOU!

[LoRdTAW]

Dear Mother Nature,
You win at winter. Now please give us spring and win that one even better.

Re:SPRING, WHERE ARE YOU!

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't hold your breath. New Zealand's just had it's greatest summer yet, with wind and rain, electrical storms, and sub-20 degree celsius temperatures. I've been trying to paint the bathroom for two weeks but the temperature has only been above 15 degrees for a handful of that time...

Snow competency increases with distance north

[Etherwalk]

As another poster said, this isn't fair. Lots of us drive with winter tires, I doubt anyone down there has even heard of them.

We (most Canadians) have the equipment and machinery to clear snow, maintain highways, and the experience to get around in these conditions. They don't.

DC is generally comic in snow, mostly because the drivers just don't know how to drive in it. I remember seeing a UPS truck try to get unstuck for an hour with no progress.

Around New York, you get a lot of people who basically know how to deal with it, but they don't always do it very intelligently. The left and right turn lanes on United States Route 1 in New Rochelle, for example, have been covered in snow for a week and they don't bother to plow them, instead just keeping the main lanes clear and letting people turn out of those.

In Canada, they are used to snow and *know* they they could get another six feet of it to deal with in the next two or three storms, so they keep the roads cleared *WAY* back. The undivided two-lane highways with unpaved shoulders are plowed to ten feet off the road in either side.

Re:Queue anti-global warming politicians and pundi

[Anonymous Coward]

Now is when the Gohmerts of the US chime in: "Look, we're getting unnaturally cold fronts and snow storms! There is no global warming! Paahhhhhhhh."

It's "climate change" now. So warmer or colder, you're still good.

How cute...

[Lumpy]

They call that "massive snow"...

I have 6 feet of it in my front yard, and that is not massive. Houghton,MI I have seen 12 feet on the ground. THAT is massive.

Re:How cute...

[Anonymous Coward]

So you have six feet of snow. By your own testimony, that's "not massive," as a relative measure, so we can assume that it's fairly regular. Massive is, then, roughly twice the regular amount, yes? The regular amount of snowfall in many of these areas is zero feet, zero inches. Precisely how many times zero inches is one inch? Now, consider the ramifications of that. Can you understand how absurd you sound?

Re:How cute...

[the eric conspiracy]

Massive Snow

http://www.strangecosmos.com/i...

Flight

[hbo]

I'm waiting to see if my SFO to CLT flight will be cancelled this morning. Oh, right. This isn't Facebook.

Re:Queue anti-global warming politicians and pundi

[Anonymous Coward]

Seeing as earlier this week we were told there would be nearly no places to hold the winter Olympics by 2080. At this point Atlanta GA sounds like it could have held it this year. Lets add on that there was supposed to be no more snow in Washington DC by 2008 and you are getting a pretty good track record of AGW alarmists always being wrong.

How many times do these "scientists" have to be wrong before you realize they are just making stuff up? So far they have a perfect track record of never being right, but since you agree with their politics you can't let a little actual observation get in the way.

Important note

[geekoid]

Take it weasy. Shoveling snow causes e lot of heart attacks every yeah. Shovel lightly, shovel often.

Re:Global Warming .... Riiiiiight.....

[geekoid]

Shut up.

Either learn the science and put forth something else based on science, or shut up.

Re: Queue anti-global warming politicians and pund

[Anonymous Coward]

The anthrogenic part is what people aren't buying. Also, there is this notion that if the climate is radically changing, it's the worst possible time to hamstring western civilization with hand-wringing self-flaggelant actions.

Crazy southern people

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in Wisconsin. We don't all have 4x4 drive, tire chains are ILLEGAL, I have no kitty litter in my trunk, and ice happens all the time. I drive a shitty little versa with 2 year old all-season tires, most people in Wisconsin drive normal 2 wheel drive cars, I drove into work in snow and white-out this morning and the plows have not even left the county garage yet. Made it in just fine, drove 10 under the speed limit, made sure to keep 5 car lengths away from the car ahead, and looked ahead for anyone slipping out in front of me.
You people down south have this outsized idea of what a snowstorm is, and what we in the north do about it. Sure, a 1 foot overnight dump needs plows, and salt keeps the fender benders down.. However:
In reality, the problem you have with this weather is not the temperature, the amount of ice, or your spending on road crews, amount of experience with snow.
It is YOU.
Almost to a person you don't drive safely even in good weather. I've been down there and even grandmas' tailgate on completely un-crowded roads. You speed to such a degree that when people go the posted speed limit you all totally go bonkers road rage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B-Ox0ZmVIU
Hell, many people think you should be arrested for going the posted speed limit!
I've been down south and saw in one day 10 cars/truck in the ditches because of RAIN. Fucking RAIN. You guys know what that is right? It happens, you know, as weather down there all the time?? Right?
Slow the fuck down, start reducing speed half a block away from the stop sign or curve, look further ahead than your shitty wafflehouse coffee in your hand, stop tailgating, accelerate slowly, don't be Yee-Haww idiots.. Also, did I mention slow the fuck down?

Re:Crazy southern people

[clovis]

No problems in this Wisconsin?
Well, you're absolutely 100% right about f-wit drivers around Atlanta.

But as for Wisconsin ...
I look at the web cams at about 10:00AM (Wi time)
Does no one live there, or is there some reason almost no one is on the roads?
http://www.511wi.gov/web/traff...

70 car pile-up in the snow?
http://wjbq.com/70-car-pile-up...

Wi drivers have no problems driving in the snow?
http://www.navbug.com/article9...

Re:Crazy southern people

[gfxguy]

No matter who you are, where you're from, or what vehicle you drive, driving on ice is treacherous and dangerous. I will agree with you, though, that many southern drivers aren't merely ignorant about driving in ice and snow, they're downright stupid. The number of people sitting there spinning their tires thinking it would somehow help was ridiculous.... "oh, my tires are spinning... maybe if I push the gas HARDER they'll stop!"

People still drove too close, which caused some of the grid lock problems as a lot of idiots, when hitting a dip in the road, would slow down on the way down... and then not be able to make it up the other side. I was stuck on an up-hill on-ramp to I85; I left over a car length between me and the driver in front in case they slid; the person behind me pulled up as close, or closer, than people do if the pavement was dry. Probably less than two feet. I was panicking, but luckily I didn't slip when we started moving. After I got out of the city gridlock, some guy in a Chevy Avalanche came flying by me. Turned out we were going the same way, and when I got to the right turn about ten seconds after the Avalanche, I turned the corner to see him facing me, slammed up against the curb. I was driving cautiously enough to stop and give him a chance to get going. After that, I think he was going slower than me.. Add in the mix all the idiots driving with their emergency lights on, and it's clear a significant number of drivers should just have their licenses taken away, bad weather or not.

Re:Crazy southern people

[Anonymous Coward]

What *speed* did you actually drive? If you were in town (25 mph limit) and drove 10 under (15 mph) then great!

However, 5 car lengths at 40 mph in snow is at least 3 car lengths too close!
Rule of thumb is: 1 car length for every 10 mph in normal conditions
2 car lengths per 10 mph in rain,
4 car lengths per 10 mph in snow.

Re:Crazy southern people

[Anonymous Coward]

shhh you will mess with his superiority complex.

Many of the things he says are true. HOWEVER
1 foot overnight dump needs plows, and salt keeps the fender benders down.

Yeah we get like 1-2 inchs a *year* here.. maybe. We should keep a fleet of trucks just to scrape that off. And huge reserves of salt and sand 'just incase'. Oh yeah and work that into the budget to pay for all of that never mind our schools are under funded our police are borrowed from the next county over. Oh and we want to build parks and sidewalks. We can magically come up with all the money for all of that.

what a twat... People like him are the reason there *ARE* accidents. They *think* they know how to drive on 1-2 inches of ice. When the reality is they know how to drive on the occasional icy spot that has been sprinkled in sand. We would welcome any donations to our snow removal fund. He is welcome to donate.

I am too from 'the north'. You do not drive on ice. It just does not happen without a different driving style. On my way home last night I almost ended up in a ditch because of an ice patch under the snow on the road I could not see at all. I also could not get into my neighborhood the normal way I come in because the hill is ice. All the time driving 5-10 mph.

Re:Crazy southern people

[X0563511]

Fucking tailgating, ALWAYS.

And you can't not tailgate, because as soon as there's 0.75 car lengths open in front of you some shithead is trying to wedge himself into it so he can get to his destination 0.01 seconds faster.

Re:Crazy southern people

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in Wisconsin.

First your roads have residual salt on them even without the plows.
Second driving on snow is completely different than driving on pure ice.
Third this is an ice storm not a snow storm. Wisconsin will be crippled in this weather as well.

Re:Crazy southern people

[Anonymous Coward]

In an area like DC and Atlanta where traffic is 100% max on a perfectly clear day, any slight disruption from the norm and the traffic problem turns into an immediate nightmare. This is why these large cities without a lot of public transportation grind to a freaking halt with even a 1/2 of snow. You can't pace yourself up a high and maintain your momentum when the entire hill is in gridlock. You can't leave 2 or 3 car lengths between you and someone else because you are not even moving and the snow is coming down all around you as you sit there. Your story about the rain and wiping out? That is not limited to the south dude. Metropolitan Atlanta population is about equal to the entire state of Wisconsin population (about 5.5 million each). More people, more traffic, more challenges.

Re:Crazy southern people

[cayenne8]

You speed to such a degree that when people go the posted speed limit you all totally go bonkers road rage.

LOL, yeah, we do like to drive fast down here, that's for sure.

I don't so much get road rage, but I do get quite annoyed if you don't get the fuck out of the left passing lane when it is obvious that I want to go faster than you and pass you.

If you wanna go slow, stick to the right hand side of the hwy.

The only time I get a bit raged, is when I see someone in the left and they are obviously trying to hold traffic back, like they are in charge of keeping everyone else at the speed limit.

My avg speed on a HWY trip is about 85mph or closer to 90mph and I get passed up at times. I do tend to drive with both a high end radar detector and a CB radio.

Re:Crazy southern people

[jjbenz]

We have 5.5 million people in the whole state, it's not going to look like L.A. with bumper to bumper traffic. Most people are at work by 8am which also cuts down on the number of cars on the roads.

Re:Crazy southern people

[BitterOak]

I'm in Wisconsin. We don't all have 4x4 drive, tire chains are ILLEGAL,

Tire chains are illegal in Wisconsin?!?!?!!! Wouldn't that be like outlawing air conditioners in Texas or umbrellas in Seattle? What is the rationale for that?

Re:Crazy southern people

[Anonymous Coward]

They tend to tear up the road a bit, not nearly as bad as spikes of course.

Re:Crazy southern people

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry but tire chains ARE allowed in Wisconsin.

Straight from the Wisconsin code:

http://docs.legis.wisconsin.go...

b) Tire chains of reasonable proportions may be used on any vehicle when required for safety because of snow, ice or other conditions tending to cause a vehicle to skid.

Re:Crazy southern people

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're a certain amount under the speed limit you're supposed to have your emergency lights on.

Re:Crazy southern people

[Wing_Zero]

I'm in Wisconsin. We don't all have 4x4 drive, tire chains are ILLEGAL

That comment is wrong, they are allowed for safety reasons. Studs are banned except for service vehicles http://legis.wisconsin.gov/lrb...

Section 347.45, Wisconsin Statutes, generally prohibits the use of studded tires, but provides exceptions for authorized emergency vehicles, school buses, vehicles used to deliver mail, and out-of-state vehicles passing through this state over a period of not more than 30 days. When allowed for those uses, the studs must not project more than one-eighth inch beyond the tread surface of the tire, and may be used on those specified vehicles only during November 15-April 1. Tire chains may be used on any vehicle when required for safety because of snow, ice or other conditions tending to cause a vehicle to skid.

Re:Crazy southern people

[Wing_Zero]

no they are not, people confuse tire chains with studs, which are restricted.

Re:Crazy southern people

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong, if the snow is cleared, you will be pulled over and ticketed. Chains can only be used when they do not contact the roadway.
This means that if you are driving, and move onto an area that has just been plowed you are breaking the law.
In reality NO ONE uses chains. I have lived here my whole life and have never once seen chains on a vehicle other than logging and construction equipment that does not drive on public roads.
I heard some guy with hunting land way up north claim that some roads are basically never plowed by the county and just local people using the plow on their pickup to get where they are going and that they use chains, but you have to remember these are farmers and homestead type people that live in the middle of nowhere on dozens or hundreds of acres that spend more time driving on their own land than public roads.

I'm in California

[neminem]

But I'm working on a project with our DC team at work... I don't think much is going to get done on that project this week, as their internet is not the most reliable at the moment. >.>

Re:Global Warming .... Riiiiiight.....

[Anonymous Coward]

ROBERT BYRD 2002: We need a climate change strategy badly. Look at the kind of winter we've had here in Washington. One snow, three inches? What can we expect for the spring and summer seasons? What's going to happen to our crops, our livestock, our economy? This is serious. I've lived a long time, 84 years. Something's going wrong out there. I don't need a scientist to tell me that. We had better do something about it.

But he only makes policy decisions on taxes to support AGW, not a scientists. Lets check an article on the IPCC from their 2001 predictions.
Story
I would link the IPCC report the article was based on, but it was removed because it was completely wrong. The 2001 IPCC assessment said there would be less and less snowfall every year due to AGW.

So let me retort, if policy makers don't need scientists, and "your" scientists are wrong, why do I need any more than to point out the window to prove you wrong?

south of DC on I95, roads clear, airports a mess

[Anonymous Coward]

About 6" of snow, roads are all plowed, nobody's out driving around that I can see.

Airlines cancelled all the flights out today, and because there's no reserve capacity, flying out tomorrow is very, very iffy (instead of a IAD to LAX, would like to go via Pittsburgh and Chicago?, or maybe Detroit and Phoenix?).

I suspect they'll restart flights this afternoon, because there's just not that much snow on the ground, and it's predicted to turn to rain, anyway (raising hell with the de-icing, of course), but the airlines have learned "better to cancel early than do perpetual delays". OTOH, cancelling without adding capacity in the following days isn't very wonderful. With flights filled at 90%, it takes 10 days to work off the backlog.

Ten inches in northern Delaware...

[Anonymous Coward]

...is a lot, for us.
Worse, it has been infused with an inch of sleet and rain... and we are expecting more snow tonight.
The roads are a disaster. My wife and I are both telecommuting, so it's a good thing our power lines are underground.

In the north

[Anonymous Coward]

Up North we set ourselves up to handle hurricanes by not building housing for millions of people at .1 foot above sea-level.. Or you know, fucking next to the ocean at BELOW sea level. (IE huge chunks of New Orleans) . I HATE that MY tax dollars are going to help rebuild some idiots house or neighborhood for the 3rd god dam time in the last 20 years when it gets destroyed by a storm everyone knows will hit every few years, in a area we know is always destroyed by such storms, built with methods we all know can't withstand the storms.
Idiots, fucking move inland and stop using high risk areas for permanent housing, and short-changing levies, break-beaches, etc... And don't expect any help from insurance or Fed tax-payers at least when your shit gets destroyed every 10 years +.

Peace and quiet.

[westlake]

Kids making snowmen is considered geeky

It's considered human.

Storms on this scale test infrastructure to the limits --- and it is interesting to see how and why things break. Burying power lines not always the answer

As for beta boycotts and related matters: the comments posted to Slashdot may be fewer, but, on the whole, appear to me saner and more focused than any I've seen here in quite some time. I intend to enjoy this while I can.

Re:Peace and quiet.

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

I like AGW! It's given us cheery snowmen!

Re:Peace and quiet.

[LoRdTAW]

The problem with burying power lines is you can't completely seal them up. You need to be able to get access to them for junction points to connect the feeders to service entries for homes and buildings. Water, dirt and salt are the main enemies of underground service. Then you have contractors digging up wires either via negligence or from reading improperly marked prints. Its a tradeoff between the two really. Overhead lines are easier and cheaper to string up but can be taken out by vehicle crashes, trees (the main enemy of overheads) and ice. Plus they don't look as nice.

On christmas day a family friends block was torn up and full of construction equipment after the manholes went up in flames. His wife had a video of flames shooting up about 2 meters high from the manhole in front of their house. Turns out salt had corroded the splices to the point where there was enough resistance to heat up, arc and start a fire. Smoke also made its way through the conduits into the homes closest to the manholes and they had the be evacuated while the fire department inspected them. This happened at 4AM and they didn't have power until 3PM albeit via temporary service lines.

Re:Peace and quiet.

[dcw3]

We've lived in a neighborhood (Fairfax VA) with all buried utility wires since 2002. In that time, our power has gone out several times, including once for three days. We've also lost cable/internet (Cox) numerous times. The vast majority of these outages were very local issues. So, for us, the only advantage has been missing the eyesore of wires strung everywhere. On the downside, whenever a neighbor wants to dig for something in their yard, all the utility companies come through to spray paint on our lawn (it's been about a couple times a year), marking where the wires run.

Re:Peace and quiet.

[westlake]

Overhead lines are easier and cheaper to string up but can be taken out by vehicle crashes, trees (the main enemy of overheads) and ice. Plus they don't look as nice.

Raised in the country, I always found the poles and overhead lines reassuring and with a kind of rhythm to them.

Rose City Road

Re:Peace and quiet.

[cayenne8]

We've lived in a neighborhood (Fairfax VA) with all buried utility wires since 2002. In that time, our power has gone out several times, including once for three days. We've also lost cable/internet (Cox) numerous times. The vast majority of these outages were very local issues. So, for us, the only advantage has been missing the eyesore of wires strung everywhere. On the downside, whenever a neighbor wants to dig for something in their yard, all the utility companies come through to spray paint on our lawn (it's been about a couple times a year), marking where the wires run.

No problems with that down here in New Orleans, everything is above ground here.

Hell, we don't even bury out DEAD here.

:)

Re:Peace and quiet.

[Evtim]

Sorry, I disagree on your last point. I am not boycotting /. this week and here is what I noticed:

I get too many mod points. When spending the last one if I just reload /. I get another 15 on the spot. I might be wrong but doesn't this mean that many quality users with high karma are not present so the system gives too much to the rest?

However, the modding itself became much more "group think". Sarcasm is not detected as such. Political correctness [auto censorship] is on the rise. Obvious humorous posts are modded troll.

Saner? No way, just the opposite. Unless you call "sane" the official party line [group think, pol. correctness, ect.]

If I have to put my tinfoil hat I'd say that /. is dumbed down deliberately, probably because our opinions matter and were becoming ever more noticed by the public at large. I personally have had the experience of being replied on other forums with the exact sentences [down to the punctuation or weird grammar if it is from non-native English speaker] that I have seen written here. Even my own sentences. I am not talking about the popular /. memes, no. Sentences and expressions from a normal discussion. Some people are listening and spreading our ideas around.

I have always thought that freedom of speech is OK as long as you don't matter. If you do, one way or another you will be stopped...I know it sounds batshit crazy but can anyone give me an alternative reason? Why do the owners of the site do this? Obviously they try to replace the community with another one. Obviously the new community is moving towards the middle of the distribution and becoming increasingly mainstream. Why?

I have seen this before, more than once. Vibrant forums are deliberately destroyed and are now just another site full with idiots and bigots. Not nearly as big as /. and still someone is taking the effort to destroy them. In my country some geeks analyzed many discussion sites and concluded that half of the posts online are from shills. They even found one of the companies that was offering such shills for hire. Turns out all major political parties are their customers and many businesses. And this is in my insignificant, pitiful, poor country that no-one takes seriously.

I cannot imagine what is at stake in an empire like the US and the lengths to which the powers to be will [or their deluded supporting sheep] will go to stifle critical thought or any thought. Even such "trivialities" as deleting 2 pages from the English translation of this book [www.amazon.com/Homo-Zapiens-Victor-Pelevin/dp/0142001813/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1392319501&sr=8-2&keywords=victor+pelevin] simply because it talks about Coca-Cola and Pepsi [in an extremely humorous and witty manner] - they pay attention even to that!!!!! How many people will read that book anyway [100 times less than the number of /. users I recon]? And yet a censorship was executed obviously in favor of those giant corporations. They think this is important enough to warrant the censoring of a book? How paranoid are those people, I wonder. I think more than me and my tinfoil hat speculations....don't you think?

It does not have to be directed by Obama, it does not have to be orchestrated by some secret cabal or 3 letter organization. It is just the Zeitgeist and we are all somehow part of the conspiracy - some of us doing big evils daily, some doing little evils daily that amount to big ones, some conforming to the inhuman socioeconomic system and deluded human mythology [in an insane world the sane are labeled crazy and who wants to be labeled like that] and adding small evils too, some of us through indifference or bigotry. We are all guilty. The system snowballs on the shoulders of the conforming, the scared, the indifferent and it only appears that there is a conspiracy, but there isn't...or there are numerous small ones acting in accord...again it's just the Zeitgeist

Just look at your post for crying out loud. Part of it is off-topic but you are at +4, whereas every negative opinion about Beta is at -1 across the site [even the jokes]. Meditate on this you should...

Re:Peace and quiet.

[xaxa]

I've only ever lived in neighbourhoods that have had all-buried utilities for decades and decades, and none of it has ever exploded. I can't remember a power cut lasting longer than a couple of hours; normally there's a brief interruption (seconds to ~10 minutes) every two-three years or less.

However, I don't live in the US, and probably pay 2-3x what you do for electricity.

Re:Peace and quiet.

[Anonymous Coward]

I çall bullshit. Buried powerlines are more expensive. But thats it. When I lived in Germany all my powerlines were buried. We had zero problems with that. Zilch. Null.

Powerlines to the local switching station were not buried of course. But those were the big overland lines that usually go higher than trees and g through open fields or where the forest gets cut around the lines.

Thats for a suburb of a 300k city, the centre of a 150k city and outskirts of a 40k town (near a 600k city). Over a 29 year period in total. So id say its pretty safe to say that someone is doing something very wrong if they are having huge problems with their buried lines. And if you have outages even with buried lines its probably because whatever "network" (probably a single non redundant line) is used to get the power to you has a problem.

Take the european power network as a counter example where a single line outage has a very low probability of affecting a large area because power can be routed around (obviously there have been incidents too especially in small towns that only have single line coming in somewhere in the mountains or the big one where several patches in europe were without power because of a ship leaving the drydock somewhere in germany)

Re:Peace and quiet.

[Anonymous Coward]

Also live in Fairfax County, VA, out west near Centreville. Utilities are all buried out here and it is great. In the four years I've lived here, we have never lost power at all. Before that I lived near the Vienna Metro station and remember losing power on more than a few occasions during storms. I don't know if this is because NOVEC does a better job than Dominion Power but I can certainly say no complaints out here in the western part of the county.

Re:Peace and quiet.

[Anonymous Coward]

and if you drive fast enough down those country roads "the telephone poles look like a picket fence" :) - Hot Rod Lincoln

Re: Peace and quiet.

[Optali]

Nice. Our Little Ace Age is still a bit on the warm side this year :(,
The Global Cooling that we are seeing right now here in Holland is 10C, a rather torrid Global Cooling thinking that we are supposed to be in the middle of skating season this year.

Mind you, I'm not saying that I have lost my faith in Global Cooling or that my brain haw been washed by evil Climate Scientist. I still hold strong and keep my tinfoil hat neat and in perfect order. I'ts just that I miss a bit of good old winter.

Re:Peace and quiet.

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't bury things in a puddle.

Schools and roads closed?

[ArcadeMan]

I work from home you insensitive clod!

its come to this

[Anonymous Coward]

we've gone from beta.slashdot.org to weather.slashdot.org .. we can only hope up next is pron.slashdot.org

Oblig. New Yorker post

[ilsaloving]

http://www.newyorker.com/onlin...

Missed New York City

[khr]

It must've missed New York City. I live in Manhattan and commuted to Brooklyn, but I didn't see anything I'd call a "massive storm". Just a light touch of snow...

Still, I wish we'd get this snow on the weekends instead of the work days, I'd really like the opportunity to go out and enjoy it.

Enjoy Your Global Warming

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, you liberal wankers lay every flood, tornado and hurricane at the feet of Global Warming, so take your "a few ice storms don't prove man-made global warming isn't happening" and shove it.

Given that the current cold trend is outside 95% of global warming models, what would be sufficient to invalidate AGW as a theory?

Another storm for the Uk

[Anonymous Coward]

Great just what we need in the UK more heavy rain. Mind you I don't know what they are moaning about if you build your house next to a river it sometimes comes and visits you

Except

[Anonymous Coward]

Except they say that this one storm is going to cost them HUNDREDS of millions..
So, yes, it is cost effective to have tens of millions in equipment 'sitting around'. It's not like it will just rot.. Yes, if they get hydraulic
Also, they don't really need the huge plow trucks they use in the north, just the normal pickup-truck attached kinds, I'm sure the city and county has plenty of road crew pickup trucks. Light duty ones only cost about $900 and go up to about $3,000 or so. Not a big expense, and they are useful for hurricanes for pushing small debris out of the road as well.

"Some of the pictures are pretty impressive."

[Anonymous Coward]

Should be reworded to "now that people can take high quality pics via mobile, this is what it looks like in a car".

Snow storms like this have come and gone over the last 100yrs. Nothing new here. Now get off my lawn!

Toronto

[Anonymous Coward]

Toronto 'called the army' because it got over 4 FEET of snow in a weeks and -20 F temperature over the entire area.
With 4 FEET you need dump trucks and front end loaders, and plows to help get the fucking plows out that are stuck in the garages, etc. And it was not any OMG call the ARMY! it was, Hey, can you guys mobilize some of your trucks and can some of your guys help us operate 24/7 until we are dug out.

With a couple of inches (down south) or even OMG the sky is falling!! ICE!!.. You just need to slow the fuck down when you walk or drive... SERIOUSLY just slow down and expect your car to drift around like a boat. Power lines down? Well, you should have already trimmed the fucking trees because you get hurricanes already you lazy bastards.
Seriously, I can be a GIANT douche.

Re:Global Warming .... Riiiiiight.....

[Anonymous Coward]

How's Michele Bachmann doing? Is she running for President again?

nothing massive, nor out of the ordinary

[recharged95]

and it isn't about not having "removal equipment". This type of weather happens all the time, especially in the NE.

The really thing we learn from this is that cars have reached a level of sophistication/tech that we all think we can travel in any weather. In reality, that's not true, we can be safer in any weather, but not capable. So the same rule of the last 50yrs still applies: 4+ of snow== stay at home. Walmart can wait. Let the crews do their job.

I'm here in Poolesville, Maryland ....

[King_TJ]

Poolesville is a small town about an hour outside of Washington D.C. Our population is only about 5,500 and it's basically a farm community that grew into more of a distant bedroom community for DC metro area employees in the last decade or two.

Around here, they've been very efficient at clearing a path through the snow, even though we've got about 11-12 inches of it this morning (and expect 2 more in a second wave late this afternoon).

I've noticed with many of the more rural Maryland communities, they seem to do better job plowing snow and keeping the roads clear than the bigger cities do. I'm sure the fact we have a lot fewer roads to clear is a big part of it, but some of the towns like Brunswick are very hilly, so you'd think they'd be a difficult challenge. Nonetheless, they seem to have workers who have a real commitment to doing the job well, and perhaps the more rural upbringing makes them more adept at handling heavy equipment like snowplows and dump trucks? (I'm sure many of them know their way around large tractors and other farm equipment.)
 

Chilly news

[Mister Liberty]

And come march, they've let a thousand new submitters spring.
All with geeky stuff like this.

Re:Queue anti-global warming politicians and pundi

[alen]

if you look at the historic snowfall for NYC, we are in the average zone now
last few years we have had the snowfall in one or two huge storms, but this year its averaged over weeks

go look at the data for the late 1800's pre global warming times. average for NYC is in the 40' for inches of snow. which is what we are at now

the global warming nuts scream catastrophe no matter what kind of weather we have which is why no one listens to them anymore

University

[Niterios]

My university refuses to cancel classes. They are sore because they had to cancel classes due to snow for the first time in twenty years last year. Sent from my astrophysics class.

Re:University

[NapalmV]

The dunce cap should be reintroduced. Albeit for chancellors not students.

it's the ice, stupid!

[Anonymous Coward]

The south gets ICE STORMS. It's nothing like winter in the north. We get a solid sheet of ice covering everything. The best, most experienced, best-equipped northern drivers couldn't do anything. No traction on ice.

Re:it's the ice, stupid!

[Anonymous Coward]

cause no one drives on ice.

http://www.gtspirit.com/2013/03/16/video-nokian-tyres-sets-new-world-record-on-ice-with-audi-rs6/

The record was set on 9 March in a stock Audi RS6 driven by test driver Janne Laitinen near the city of Oulu in Finland. The raceway is a 12-kilometre (7.5 mile) track created on the ice of the Gulf of Bothnia. The new Hakkapeliitta 8 tires performed extremely well, at high speeds when the car travels over 93 meters per second.

transformers stay above ground usually

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't bury the transformers or other gear. They sit on the ground in metal boxes. It is the power lines that are buried, so that trees can't fall on the lines and take the power out, and so that winds, idiots crashing cars, etc don't knock the poles over. True, floods and such can still cause problems, but the top causes are tree limbs, wind, and ice buildup knocking the lines themselves down.
But you are right, 'onetime 3k fee'? It so depends.
Maybe if a brand new dense housing development is being built something like that might be true.
And, IF installed properly underground lines have real long term savings for maintenance, though if they install incorrectly and the lines fail it is costly to dig up and repair, and possibly could cause many thousands in damage to patios, expensive plants/trees, etc. But if done correctly underground lines can last almost forever.
Also, there are the 'last mile' lines to houses, I'd say that these are almost always cost effective for new development, it is the larger lines that run hot that might not be worth it, and since they are usually on easements that are kept free of trees and easier to fix than the hundreds of individual branches going to homes they are probably just not worth burying at this point.

Here in Sterling, Virginia

[Anonymous Coward]

That's one way to go. I decided not to wait because it's supposed to be 40F and sunny tomorrow. I'd rather shovel packed powder with a little slush on top today and then a bit of slush tomorrow than shovel a big pile of slush tomorrow. Besides, everyone else is out shoveling and it's a great time to talk to neighbors. Compared to all of last year, I probably just quadrupled the number of sentences that I've spoken to my neighbors.

You Bastards!

[taxtropel]

Give us back our snow! --Sad Washington Ski Bum

Yea at ten am

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm.. at 10:00 the kids are in school and the adults are at work.. And it is a little shitty out so yea' we don't leave if we don't have someplace to be. Is that somehow strange?

70 car pile up? outside Milwaukee with probably 70% of the drivers from Illinois? Yea' that that sounds about right.. Arguments about FIB drivers and idiots from Milwaukee are a staple in WI.

Also, a couple of crashes? Remember, the roads were open, no state of emergency, our wall-marts have bread, school was not closed, and at least it was not raining in Atlanta or there would be a hundred deaths and many thousands of gallons of beer and moonshine spilled.

Cost primarily

[sjbe]

The USA - the technically most advanced country - still is not able to put powerlines underground. Why???

Because it is roughly 8X as expensive and the US is a HUGE country. There are plenty of underground powerlines, particularly in dense urban areas like Manhattan. But the population across most of the country is rather spread out, much more so than is probably entirely sane. (Thanks city planners!) The population density simply isn't enough in most places to justify the extra cost. Servicing underground lines is also more expensive so while you might not have as many weather related issues you'll spend more for the issues you do have.

2 inches?

[Anonymous Coward]

My county with budget problems does not even send out the plows for 2 inches. No lie. You just drive in the tracks of all the other cars. If you are lucky they might dump some sand at major intersections. And ice, yea' it sucks, drive slow. People out here drive on the ice all the time. It's called ice fishing, and usually the good old boys are dunk when they do it and manage not to knock over too many ice shanties. And taking an alternate route because of bad roads? Is this somehow not normal thinking? Get where you need to go, stay when you get there, and slow down. Not that hard.

Toronto isn't some little town

[sjbe]

The whole nation of Canada has 35m people. Metro Boston has around 5m. Metro NYC has 20m.

The greater Toronto area has about 5.5 million residents. It is by FAR the largest city in Canada and Toronto City has roughly the same number of residents as Chicago making it either the 4th or 5th largest city in North America and the 8th largest metropolitan area. It's bigger than Boston by about a million people. Toronto is a huge sprawling metropolis.

I don't know if you've ever had the pleasure of Toronto rush hour but I get to at least once a year and it is pretty bad. The 401 passing through Toronto is the busiest stretch of highway in North America.

Basically Toronto doesn't remotely resemble the rest of Canada and I've been in enough of Canada to know.

Re:Toronto isn't some little town

[Ken D]

Sure, and apparently Toronto also has trouble with snow and ice and traffic and commuter rail being shutdown.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2...

http://www.cp24.com/weather/cr...

http://www.thestar.com/opinion...

no need to make fun

[Anonymous Coward]

stop making fun of us people in the south. we only get ice storms every few years. we don't have lots of snow plows or salt trucks not everyone drives with chains on their tires in half an inch of ice. roads and bridges are iced up. buses are not running. airports are closed because of the freezing rain.

thank you - a southerner

Multi-purpose vehicles

[sjbe]

Most equipment will suffer as much or more from not being used as it will from being used. In Atlanta, a fleet of heavy snow equipment would likely as not be half-deteriorated by the time it was next needed

You don't buy dedicated snow removal trucks. You use multi-purpose earth moving equipment that works in the summer too, dump trucks for spreading salt, have plow mounts on city service vehicles, etc. Stockpile salt for when you need it every 5th year. Have a plan in place to get those vehicles into action when a storm is coming. A little preparation and planning goes a long way.

Re:Multi-purpose vehicles

[SJHillman]

How exactly are you supposed to spread salt with dumptrucks? Give a guy a shovel and have him stand in the back and fling salt out? Multi-purpose earth-moving equipment is okay for parking lots and driveways, but would work really poorly and slowly on roads in which you need to continuously push snow to the side, not in front of you. Likewise, most city vehicles wouldn't work very well in a task for which they are not designed... there's a reason northern states don't just use pickups with plows on the roads even when they only get an inch or two of snow. Salt stockpiles don't last forever... moisture and time are their enemies. It also takes up a huge amount of space just to store. Most importantly, all of this costs more money to maintain than it costs to recover from not having it.

Re:Multi-purpose vehicles

[sjbe]

How exactly are you supposed to spread salt with dumptrucks?

20 seconds on google would have answered that question. Plenty of places do it. You don't even need a lot of salt spreading equipment as long as you get out in front of the problem on the main roads.

Multi-purpose earth-moving equipment is okay for parking lots and driveways, but would work really poorly and slowly on roads in which you need to continuously push snow to the side, not in front of you

You use a grader blade. Can be mounted to all kinds of vehicles from earthmovers to tractors and pushes the snow to the side. My municipality uses them on the dirt roads around here and on occasion the city streets. Every major city has them and even a lot of small towns do too. Hell you can even lease them on a contingent basis if you want to save money.

Likewise, most city vehicles wouldn't work very well in a task for which they are not designed... there's a reason northern states don't just use pickups with plows on the roads even when they only get an inch or two of snow.

They don't have to work great. They just have to work better than nothing. Southern states buy plenty of trucks. Attach a plow mount and spreader mount to a few of them. And you are wrong that northern states don't use pickups on the road. My own town does just that in many places to give the big snow removal vehicles time to work on the bigger roads.

Salt stockpiles don't last forever... moisture and time are their enemies. It also takes up a huge amount of space just to store.

It's a rock. As long as you keep it relatively dry which is a problem with known solutions, you have little to worry about. Sand can work pretty well too in a lot of cases. And are you seriously going to argue that a major city couldn't find a few acres to store it? Hell, the salt companies will probably maintain it for you for a reasonable retainer.

Most importantly, all of this costs more money to maintain than it costs to recover from not having it.

Not once you factor in ALL the costs. How expensive was the shutdown in Atlanta? How valuable were the lost lives that could have been saved? You seriously think the cost of some durable equipment and salt/sand and a little planning is lower than shutting a major metropolitan area down for days? Glad you aren't my accountant.

Re:Multi-purpose vehicles

[Anonymous Coward]

20 seconds on google would have answered that question

That equipment will be will do unused for most of year and not be in working order when it's needed.

You use a grader blade.

See above.

Southern states buy plenty of trucks. Attach a plow mount and spreader mount to a few of them.

See above.

It's a rock. As long as you keep it relatively dry which is a problem with known solutions, you have little to worry about.

It will be hard to fine a dry place large enough to store enough salt to cover all the roads in Atlanta.

Not once you factor in ALL the costs. How expensive was the shutdown in Atlanta?

A hell of a lot cheaper than wasting money on unused equipment. Even if they had the equipment. They will still need to shut down the city in order to have the roads clear enough to use it.

Meanwhile in northern Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

If your having issues driving on ice, buy some ice tires. I drive on ice for the 8 month winter, and a good set of tires is well worth it.
The mountain pass(pine pass)near here gets 40 feet of snow a year. No cell service, nothing but barren wilderness, with a few small communities here and there.
If your roads are getting gravel and salt, consider yourself lucky.
http://a100.gov.bc.ca/pub/mss/stationdata.do?station=4A02

Re:Meanwhile in northern Canada

[SecurityGuy]

Won't help. The primary impediment to travel is other cars. If you can get everyone else to buy ice tires, or hell, just teach them to drive on snow, I'd be fine.

Drive to the CONDITIONS

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously,

I live in Alaska, we drive on a mix of snow and ice covered roads that are slippery as driving on balls bearings in oil for months, many people dont even bother with winter/snow tires or cant afford them. From time to time people meet the ditch because they were going too fast for the road conditions, or I see a 3 car nose to tail, because people were going too fast for the road conditions, or someone 180's it because they were going too fast for the conditions, or someone smashed the bumpers clean off their car because they were going too fast for the conditions.

Re:Drive to the CONDITIONS

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to live in Valdez, Alaska which holds the dubious title of the snowiest city in the US. The town itself gets ~325 inches of snow annually, nearby Thompson Pass gets about three times that amount. A couple years ago the town proper was fairly well buried by over 500 inches of snow, with 350 inches falling in December alone. Shoveling the roofs of structures became an emergency, as well as boats. See here for what happens when you don't shovel your boat.

So the lower 48 is having some sort of a snowfall. How cute. Now check this out.

The people you're referring to, who don't have snow tires, are idiots. They also must not traverse hills very often; icy conditions can often prevent that entirely on non-studded tires. There are times when even studded tires won't save you: I've been in a large, heavily laden van on wet ice, where any speed whatsoever would result in fishtailing, and when stopped the vehicle was nudged over to the side of the road by no more than a moderate breeze. Not exactly the conditions you want when you're a hundred miles from anywhere, and just ahead the road plunged down towards a river, a long steep grade with a sharp turn at the bottom. The turn being necessitated by said river and the cliff it had cut. "Drive to the conditions," was it? Sure. After you make every other possible effort in the name of safety, because anything can happen.

You know how I can tell you're from Anchorage? Besides that most people in Alaska live there, you talk about people 'meeting the ditch' as if that were not an immediate threat to life and limb. If it's white-out in the Interior at -50, and you 'meet the ditch' in such a way that your vehicle heater doesn't work, there is a very small chance that you will live long enough to be rescued. No cell service, natch. If you 'meet the ditch' in the Chugach Mountains, you can only hope that the guard rail will save you, or if you're slightly less lucky, you can hope to be dead before your car finishes rolling down umpteen hundred feet of elevation, to (typically) a roiling river.

The issue I have with Anchorage drivers is that they drive like they're in Minnesota or some damn place where the damage to the vehicle is the most important concern, instead of having the proper respect for the lethal conditions outside. We have only the illusion of control over our environment, there. No matter how skilled of a driver you are, all it takes is one stupid animal and an icy patch to wreck your illusions.

news for nerds

[Anonymous Coward]

fuck you slashdot - cocksuckers.

Difference between PA and GA

[Tolvor]

I currently live in Pennsylvania (near Allentown), and used to live in Atlanta. I've driven in snow in both states, and snow is definitively worse in Georgia.

Sure PA gets more snow than GA will. Before any snowstorm you will see salt spreaders on the road dusting the road, and huge snowplows can be seen idling in the median of the interstates waiting for the snowfall. PA gets snow every year so PA does have the resources. Drivers in PA know how to drive in snow. I don't know how people in Wisconsin do it, but in PA it is not 10 miles under the speed limit. I've been on the interstate (speed limit 65 mph), 2 lanes, but almost everyone is in 1 lane, and traffic moved at a steady 20-25 mph. (I 81N today, between Frackville and Hazleton). Cars stayed in the tracks of the car in front, and left plenty of room between cars. Driving slow and careful and taking longer is better than driving fast, skidding out, and not getting there.

When I lived in Georgia it rarely snowed. I grew up in Cordele (watermelon capital of the world). I remember only about 2 "snows" in about 15 years, each less than 2 inches. Georgia naturally does not have the snow moving equipment that the northern states do, quite logical, not really needed most of the time. The roads are not designed as well for snow (ex, the I 75N / I 85N merge in Atlanta, with the merge lane in the middle. People on 85 trying to go right for the exit ramps, people on the right trying to go left to avoid the fast lane exits) A lot of people in GA have lived in states that get lots of snow, so GA drivers do know how to drive. Tire stores in GA do sell snow / traction / anti-skid tires. It is just that they don't have enough recent practice with snow driving.

I've heard the joke that in northern states that snowfall of 6 inches or so doesn't make the news and it is business as usual, while southern states will close school with a 1/4 inch of snow on the ground (yes, that happened once in GA). But without the salt, grit, roads with lots of bends, and lack of practice I wouldn't want to drive in snow in GA.

(As a side note, Georgia roads have the definite advantage of not having a many potholes as Pennsylvania has, the pothole capital of the world)

a Perspective on Global Warming

[WillAdams]

Given that what 20 years ago wasn't even a notable winter is being treated as the end-of-the-world-winter-storm, one can instead use it w/ a bit of perspective to see how global warming has crept up on us:

http://www.xkcd.com/1321/

William
(who made it into work in south-central PA w/o difficulty in a front-wheel drive Cavalier w/ all-season radial tires, but only saw 4-wheel drives and snow plows and vehicles w/ tire chains on the road)

As someone from the south I agree... Mostly

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes if you go to Memphis or Little Rock (drawing from my experiences) drivers are a bit crazy and it isn't uncommon to see a 4x4 just drive through the grass to get to an off ramp. But for the most part it is a complete ignorance of how to drive on ice. Ice is what we get most times here in NWArk and further south. One can drive on it, so long as you take it slow and don't do anything crazy. But we get it usually 2 times a year in January and February. I have seen it go from 60 to 8 degrees (Fahrenheit) in a 2 day period in January and dump Freezing rain then snow then sleet. Our counties throw sand on the intersections and pull out the road graders and 2 or 3 snow plows and might get it cleaned up in a week. Most of the people I work with still make it in to work, all be it a bit tardy. The rest just dial in from home. It is one thing to drive in it to work and a totally different thing to haul my family out in it or force my kids to ride the bus. If you don't have to drive on the ice, it is just safer to not drive on it. It will be gone in a few days. It is a different mindset, I guess, when most of your winter consists of snow and some ice. I would infer that you get accustomed to it and you learn how to handle it. Most of the people here who are from the south aren't used to it.

Re:Global Warming .... Riiiiiight.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Another reason why America allows so many illegal fat Mexican undocumentos to live among them. When the food supplies collapse due to global warming, we will eat them after we run out of deniers. Tastes like chicken.

Re:Queue anti-global warming politicians and pundi

[Tablizer]

In the south-west US, it's unusually warm and dry for this time of year. Looking at just one area on Earth makes for poor evidence.

Just like the last 4 and 1/2 billion years?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, when global cooling sets in the next 10-15 years we will eating the Rothschild Brainwashed global warming proponents first

source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdqNds9pNuI

So go ahead :) Get psy-oped by the jewish bankers for the millionth time :) Fall for it! Everyone who modded you up also fall for it. Believe the IPCC when they've been repeatedly discredited for fudging data. However, when it comes to survival, trust me, I'm going to be very ready for when you come to try to eat me fagot :)

Re:Global Warming .... Riiiiiight.....

[Rakarra]

Remember these tards say that "its got to get colder to get warmer...." (the Warmists of course who Im talking about)

You realize the reason why the east is going through record low temperatures and precipitation is because the west is going through record dry spells and heat waves, yes?

All those storms that were supposed to hit the west coast got pushed into the Arctic instead, gaining power and losing heat.

You can't just look up and say "weather here is fine." There's a larger picture you have to see.

Meh, and you covered the Central US When?

[LaughingVulcan]

I'm rather sick and tired of every East Coast issue causing major headline news, while the Midwest gets basically ignored. We've been having the worst winter in memory in Central Illinois, at least 3 major storms and manyl days of uncharacteristic sub-zero arctic weather. Since January. Forgive me if I don't find this story interesting at all. And no offense to you on the East Coast, and not intended to mean things like snow in the South/Southeast.

HTFU America!

[Anonymous Coward]

What a bunch of Pussies. Since when is 8-12" considered a "monster" storm? I live in, and my kids went to school in a ski resort, and over 16 years had exactly *one* snow day - not that they didn't miss a few powder days anyway ;-) During my childhood in lower upstate NY, we regularly had 18" dumps and no-one was "paralyzed", except by fear that Dad would make us shovel the driveway.

Global Warming deniers: they haven't had anything like that in over two decades. Even this year. And it was 63 in Sitka recently!

Have infrastructure and maintenance deteriorated so much that we're soft? Does anyone buy winter tires anymore?

I say HTFU, America! The Australian version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EY7lYRneHc

No one can drive on ice without chains. In the sou

[Anonymous Coward]

No one can drive on ice without chains. In the south there aren't 1000 trucks with salt and sand to keep the roads from freezing.

Re:Global Warming .... Riiiiiight.....

[ElementOfDestruction]

... there has been less snow and snow every year. It's big fucking news that we're getting snow that was considered normal winter activity merely 15-20 years ago. You're cute though.

Re:No one can drive on ice without chains. In the

[Anonymous Coward]

In the real north, salt doesn't keep the roads from freezing.

Re:Global Warming .... Riiiiiight.....

[mjwx]

Just one warning: when the food supplies collapse due to global warming, we will eat the deniers like you first.

With the last of the fava beans and a nice Chianti

VDZ

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen 4 feet of snow overnight, and thirty feet in a month. They didn't even cancel school. You are a douche, and you have no idea what snow is like. It's really hilarious that you think you do.

it snows in winter

[ILongForDarkness]

In other news rain showers are expected in April. The south can be idiots when it comes to dealing with snow. Sure you don't get it often but if you don't have salt trucks, plows, snow tires, still insist on driving like the roads are clear than you get what you deserve. I interviewed for a job in Forth Worth a while back and they said if it snows don't come to work its not worth your life. Meanwhile where I'm from we get 30cm snow falls a few times a winter and typically 5cm a few times a week ... and people drive reasonably, leave for work 30 min earlier in the winter etc.

Lumpy how'd "eating your words" taste?

[Anonymous Coward]

ROTFLMAO @ "Chumpy" -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...

(You sure "talk a good game" -> http://games.slashdot.org/comm... but you can't even produce a MERE SCRIPT!, windbag...)

You aren't even on the leve of a "script kiddie", & full of HOT AIR!

You certainly won't reply there in that 2nd link I posted either, as that would remove your downmods to my posts like this one you can't validly disprove or justify your downmod on -> http://games.slashdot.org/comm...

Oh, I suspect that IS the case here (simply logging out of a registered account & trolling by ac is a common troll trick around here OR using alternate registered 'luser' accounts sockpuppets to do the job will also, & Lumpy is LOADED with those & trolling - which doesn't matter: He PROVES he's all talk, no action (or skills, OR brains, lol))

(You're all TALK, & NO action "CHUMPY!)

* :)

(You know it, I know it, & so does anyone reading AND laughing their asses off @ you now... lol!)

APK

P.S.=> Answer the question in the subject-line Lumpy - since you had to "eat your wrods" in the 1st link above flavored with your FOOT IN YOUR MOUTH + the "bitter taste of SELF-defeat", lol...

... apk