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Mr. Luddite

On 1/21/2016 11:28 AM, Justan Olphart wrote:
On 1/21/2016 11:04 AM, John H. wrote:
On Thu, 21 Jan 2016 09:33:42 -0500, wrote:

On Thu, 21 Jan 2016 08:27:04 -0500, John H.
wrote:

On Thu, 21 Jan 2016 00:07:59 -0500, wrote:

On Wed, 20 Jan 2016 17:11:08 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 1/20/2016 2:13 PM, Keyser Söze wrote:
On 1/20/16 2:07 PM, wrote:
On Wed, 20 Jan 2016 13:30:50 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"

wrote:

Looking like Wash DC is the bull's eye for 2 or more feet of
snow this
weekend. This will be interesting to watch as it pans out.

The answer is simple. Our government will shut down for a week.
I suppose they will find a way to blame it on the GOP ;-)

My recollection is a federal government shutdown of only two days
for a
"blizzard," and, of course, making the highways and byways safe for
travel and clearing the Metro and rail commuter tracks takes time.

The average yearly snowfall in Wash DC is about 14 inches total.
This storm may bring two feet or more all at once. It might take a
while to get cleared out.

I have been in DC for a number of these 2'+ snow falls and it tends to
jam the place up for quite a while. A lot depends on what comes behind
it. Sometimes it warms up and things actually get worse because it
still freezes over night so you get black ice. My Firebird wore a
little reminder of that until after I sold it.
If it snows again it even gets uglier and people just stay home for
days.

I got propane, so I can bbq. Whenever I see a Dominion Virginia
Power truck in the
neighborhood I go thank the guy. We've not had an outage over a few
hours since I
moved here in 1995 (knock on wood).

Power outages were really pretty rare in the olden days. I don't
remember them at all when we lived inside the DC line and very rare
just over the line in PG. When I moved down to Clinton in the 70s we
had a few that lasted more than an hour but not many. Now my Ex says
it happens often enough that she bought a generator.
Ice storms were worse than the snow. (The old "sleet and freezing
rain" that was worse than a good snow)
This storm looks unusual because all the snow will come at once. Our
big snow events usually involved it snowing every day or two for a
week or so. Worst case was a pattern of cold air from the west and a
low coming up from the south. That was when PG got slammed. It usually
snowed a lot more in Montgomery and Frederick.

Apparently Pepco has gone downhill. Seems like there's an outage up
there affecting
tens of thousands after any big weather event.

But the worst has already happened. Last night, according to this
a.m.'s news was a
traffic nightmare in DC, with less than an inch of snow. So bad the
mayor had get on
the news and tell how all the problems will be solved.
--

Ban idiots, not guns!

Problems from less than 1" of snow. Really?

We had a minor "clipper" pass through the area last Sunday night/Monday
morning. Nobody thought much about it because the forecast was for a
"dusting" to maybe an inch. The dusting or inch turned into 5-6 inches
all along the south shore from Marshfield to the Cape. The highway
departments didn't bother pre-treating the roads and the results were
ice packed roads and numerous fender benders.

The handicap equipped van I drive is absolutely horrible in snow or ice.
No traction at all. I have one client who lives on one of the many
hilly back roads in North Plymouth, plus her driveway is a long hill
going up from the road. I have to make sure I have a running start
going up her driveway, slowly easing up on the gas as we go up, hoping
that I timed it right to make it to the top. So far I've done ok.
Then, after loading her in the van, I turn around, make sure there is no
traffic on the road in either direction and do a controlled slide
back down her driveway. After that, the road is another steep, long
hill down to a major road. Ice packed, of course. To navigate that
hill, I put the transmission in "1" and crawl down the hill without
touching the brakes and letting the engine/transmission keep the speed
down. If I even touched the brakes, it would put the van in a slide and
who knows what would happen. Nerve wracking when you have 9 or 10
people yacking away behind you.