I will be 46 in a short time and have experienced only a handful of ice storms in my life. That literally was a once in a generational storm where the forecast called for a 1/4'' of ice and then we all woke up to an inch of ice followed by 3 weeks of temps that never got out of the 20's. There was no way for the state or any local office to be prepared for that at all. Frustrations aside, there was nothing anyone could do except bring in crews of temp labor and have 500 shovels and skid loaders for days.
Our history shows that the snow won't hang around that long. Besides the 4' we got in back to back storms in 2010, this is the longest I remember seeing snow still on the ground at the depth it was when the storm passed us by. We had 8'' of snow covered in an inch of ice on the ground for 3 weeks.
And the point I’m making is that if they were prepared on day zero, before the snow even touched the ground, then it wouldn’t have been “once in a generation”.
Its all about money at the end of the day. They made a decision to not put the necessary amount of funds within that first 48 hours.
I’m not gonna pretend to know how much that costs, i’m just stating my frustration that they didn’t, especially at my job and neighborhood.
Yeah, I get being frustrated. Getting stuck inside and not being able to go back to daily life fucking blows, part of why I’m able to enjoy the snow is that I work from home. But when we say it was once in a generation, we mean the severity of the storm, not the response to it. Meteorologists will be studying that storm in school, it was that unique, especially with the long period of below freezing temps than followed. No amount of salt could have prevented the outcome, and like I said there’s only so much salt available and the entire east coast needed it. And we simply don’t own enough of the big plows to handle that much ice.
This storm today and the one forecasted for next week should be much less impactful, even if they dump a taller pile of snow, since the temperature is much warmer this time around.
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u/lookatthatsquirrel Feb 22 '26
I will be 46 in a short time and have experienced only a handful of ice storms in my life. That literally was a once in a generational storm where the forecast called for a 1/4'' of ice and then we all woke up to an inch of ice followed by 3 weeks of temps that never got out of the 20's. There was no way for the state or any local office to be prepared for that at all. Frustrations aside, there was nothing anyone could do except bring in crews of temp labor and have 500 shovels and skid loaders for days.
Our history shows that the snow won't hang around that long. Besides the 4' we got in back to back storms in 2010, this is the longest I remember seeing snow still on the ground at the depth it was when the storm passed us by. We had 8'' of snow covered in an inch of ice on the ground for 3 weeks.