Snowtastrophie

Forget snowmaggedon. The cataclysmic event for most in this area has been the daily commute to work.Traffic snarls, not just in downtown, but all over the region which rival those of 9-11. The advantage of 9-11 was,if you had to, you could walk. After negotiating the shovel-wide passages available for boarding and alighting busses, walking is about the most dangerous thing you can do in DC these days.

The congestion was caused because lanes narrowed or disappeared or just plain hadn't been plowed. There were the usual vehicle collisions, jack-knifed tractor trailers, and the new phenomena of cars ending up in snowbanks. Speaking of plowing, there was the brillance of Tuesday evening, when plowing was going on downtown during rush-hour on snow emergency routes (those are the priority roads for snow clearing and removable). Parts of Pennsylvania Avenue (6 blocks from the White House) still had an unplowed lane as of Wednesday morning--7 days after the last snowfall.

If you've seen any nature specials featuring penguins and watched the penguins queue up on the ice to jump into the frigid waters,that's the life of a bus commuter. The queue of people waiting to board have to scuttle back to let those alighting negotiate the shovel-wide passages and get clear before boarding. Gone are the days of bumrushing the front doors. Because of the snowbanks, bus drivers are often forced to find the place with the lowest bank, an intersection, or just not pull up to the curb to let people off. This often mandates that passengers can only alight from the front door. Not an easy feat when you're packed like sardines.

Walking down M Street last night, I noticed the banks of snow were piled so high that I couldn't see ordinary car traffic. The top 12 inches of SUV's were visible. This morning I noticed that I couldn't see people waiting at the bus stop two blocks away, only the mound of snow at the intersection. I knew there were people because the bus stopped.

Downtown the pavements are mostly clear. It is the intersections, where the plowing crews decided the mounds of snow needed to rest that are the problem. On approaching a corner, you need to look for the best access point. Is there a shoveled passage or a slushy path beaten down by walkers who passed this way before you? Once you've traversed that, cars are not the issue. It's looking to the far horizon of the opposite corner to scout your next or best point of access to the clean pavement beyond.

The recurring difficulty is that any melting that hasn't drained away before the evening rush, begins to refreeze about sundown. Meaning that you might start your commute walking on slightly damp or wet pavement and end it walking on black ice. This is really hard to spot in the dark and even harder in the shadow of snowbanks. It also means leaving before sunrise is a bit dodgy.

Until this morning, the commutes inbound had been relatively normal,except for the penguining. This morning it tookalmost 90 minutes to do a 45 minute commute. This evening's commute was down from Tuesday's 2.5hrs and Wednesday's over 90 minutes,to about 65 minutes. Lots of penguining tonight at our stop as three busses simultaneously discharged passengers. Two of the more able men in the queue to cross the street had to climb the banks of snow to create space for the passengers alightling the third bus.

On another note, last Tuesday I got splashed by salt-treated snow. When I got on the bus, I noticed my gloves, wristlets, and yellow cords looked like I'd been in a blue paintball fight. I soaked them in cold water and the dye came out. Tonight I wiped down the backpack I wore that day and sponge continues to take off more blue as I wipe. The odd thing is, this blue dye isn't visible in the treated snow. I have also noticed that although the snowpiles are definitely dirty, it is the black sooty dirty that I remember from large snowfalls when I was a child in Pittsburgh or in my teens here in DC. So, the Clean Air Act has worked...somewhat.

Best of all, a not yet clearly definable weather event is predicted for Monday.

On the yarn front, my order placed before the first snowfall arrived. Purple It's quite delicious.