Next week, the east coast is going to get slammed. Aside from the -20 cold tonight, this wasn't so bad, and the snow is cleared now. We'll just bundle up and stay home until the roads are plowed. Nowhere in particular to go anyhow.
The NBC Morning News this morning had a brief blurb about the Twin Cities, but we are generally ignored. When this hits the Northeastern states on Monday, though, there will be lots of coverage of people digging out and all of the traffic accidents and snarls.
People who live in the cold winter states generally cope pretty well with this, unless there are huge power outages or something. Then, it becomes a true emergency. But, the homeless shelters are full here and there will be many people in car accidents due to the slippery roads. The auto body shops do a huge business this time of year.
For some people, the snow plowing policies of cities cause real problems. People who must park on city streets have to pay careful attention to where they can and can't park during "snow emergencies." Those who aren't paying attention get their cars towed, and it costs an average of about $250 to get your car back from the impound lot. For some people, that money doesn't exist. As far as I know, there's no fund to help those people with that problem, and it can be disastrous for some.
On the other hand, there are also people who pay no attention whatsoever to snow plowing schedules and don't even try to follow the parking rules. They're sort of funny when they get interviewed at the impound lot by the local TV station. "What snow emergency? I didn't hear about any snow emergency!" They don't read the newspaper, watch local news, or listen to radio stations that announce it every 5 minutes. They didn't sign up for the texts or emails the cities send out to announce them. In most cities, they're even automatically declared whenever more than, say, 3" of snow falls. But, those people are outraged that their Beemer got towed and the tow driver scratched their bumper. That's amusing to a certain degree.
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