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on snow

We had a rather large snowfall in Seat*tle while I was out of town. Not surprisingly, Seat*tle was completely unable to handle it. I've talked to colleagues at work who were housebound for eight days. After the "wind storm" which caused loss of power, I expect very little from the city / county in terms of disaster response. If mother nature has it in for us, you better be prepared because the city sure isn't going to be. I now have food, water, candles and wood stocked up in my garage good for a week or so, and my goal is to be good for 3 weeks. My Dad thinks this is insane, but he's living in SW Vir*ginia, which, despite various failings, handles snow, wind and rain rather better than the Pacif*ic NW. The article is all about Seat*tle, which is actually much better than the town of Ke*nt, where I live.

In any event, we had a 20 year snow event. I agree with the city council people - we shouldn't be fully prepared for such an event. It's too expensive. There should be a quantitative analysis done of revenue lost by businesses versus the cost of having plows and personnel to handle that event, including overtime pay on the holidays. (Of course, the analysis itself might be expensive.) I suspect such an analysis would show that the city was fairly reasonable. Not using salt was ridiculous (for environmental reasons, shown since the original decision was made nearly 2 decades ago to be bogus) but they've changed that policy.

Of course, I was out of town. It's entirely possible that I'd have a different opinion if I'd been around. When Sea*ttle was getting pummeled, I was in the barren wasteland that is the O'Ha*re environs. *That* was amazing.

8:29 a.m. - Jan. 06, 2009