My friend finally made it home -- 11 hours after leaving the office. The recriminations are heated today, even if homes are not.


http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local-...4710519.html?dr

Traffic and Transit Update: 12-Hour Commute

...Danielle Heard finally made it to her destination at 5:30 a.m. Thursday after leaving her Crystal City office at 4:45 p.m. Wednesday.

She said traffic came to a halt on the road at about 5:15 p.m., and moved very little after that. She did a phone interview with NBC Washington at the 10-hour mark of her drive home.

"People have begun to abandon their vehicles," she said. "When you finally do get some movement, you're driving around them, or around people who ran out of gas."

She said some people began walking out of frustration, while others decided to sleep in their vehicles.

"It's surreal," she said.

My friend at least was able to get to a gas station a few hours into the debacle (she had topped off her tank that morning). These thousands of cars on the GW Parkway between DC and the Beltway had nowhere to go -- it's a scenic highway, no gas stations, stores or anything else. Only a couple of exits to other roads that were also fiascos.

At least if I had been stuck there (literally not moving an inch for hours), I could have brewed hot cocoa, have bottled water, plenty of food (energy bars, Pop-Tarts, beef jerky). And I have tp and Kleenex in the car, sleeping bag to keep warm, chemical warmers, blah, blah.

The fuel situation would be scary, don't know how long even a full tank would last. Most of these peops probably didn't have a full tank -- there are no gas stations downtown (K Street corridor/White House) or between there and the GW Parkway (most merge onto the Parkway from the Potomac River bridges.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/26/AR2011012608980.html?hpid=topnews

Snow gridlock traps commuters for up to 13 hours

Denise Borders spent nearly 13 grueling hours on the Parkway - "just sitting for hours. Literally. Sitting, not moving" - without food, without a bathroom, without sleep. There were trees down and people whose cars got stuck trying to turn around and get off the parkway, Borders said. But for most of the drivers on the road, the snow was less of a problem than the complete gridlock that enveloped them.

"You saw people get out and have to relieve themselves out in the street. It was horrible," Borders said after finally arriving at her home in Reston, close to 5:30 a.m.

We were able to ride the storm out unscathed. The schools were closed so both my younger daughter who is in High School and my middle daughter who teaches were home for the day (and today as well). The Fort closed down around 10am with staggered releases. My wife and I left at 1:00. Since we only live two blocks from the front gate and there was no precipitation at the time, we got home in our usual 10 minutes. We stayed in; watched movies and TV, never lost power. We had a 2-hour delay this morning and had no problems getting in and finding a parking place (for once). For us, this was one of the easiest storms to deal with in the last few years. Like your friend, we had friends who work near Rockville/Gaithersburg and ended up being stuck for 6+ hours getting home.

Pete

The Invincibility Delusion.

A phenomenon I observed in a couple of my friends: confident that their vehicles are invincible (Subaru, 4x4) they thought they could go anywhere at any time.

We actually had this discussion via e-mail hours before the snow hit because one of them was debating whether to cancel an evening meeting she was running. I pointed out what should have been obvious: doesn't matter how capable your vehicle is if the ones in front, behind and to your sides aren't moving.

She cancelled the meeting (no one else would have shown up anyway) and stayed home. We spent much of the night on the phone with our other friend who had delayed her departure from work and sat in her 4x4 for 11 hours.

I talked at length with the latter friend this morning. She's normally a cool customer and was in better shape than many as she was in a capable vehicle in an area where she was able to gas up, go to the bathroom, get bottled water and had a phone charger in her car. She was mindful of the anxiety she felt being trapped in traffic like that for hours on end -- not budging even an inch for an hour or more at times -- and being worried about other family members, some of whom were incommunicado.

She said that walking in the front door at home was the most incredible feeling. She watched her dogs play in the snow for an hour to decompress.

We're now working together to devise car kits for her and her family. We're only half-way through the prime snow months here.

Here's a good source of tire chains. I have these for low-profile AWD (in accordance, as I recall, with my Honda Element's owner's manual):

http://www.tirechain.com/sae.htm


I've gotten two sets from them in the past decade. Good service, reasonable prices.

Ok, is it me or have people forgotten that it snows in the winter? Granted, some places that haven't seen snow, or the amounts of snow, in a while but it's not like the weather gods have gone insane and it's snowing at the equator. NYC is in the north, snow happens there. DC, sorry, north enough if Atlanta is getting snow.

Probably 95% of the people interviewed on TV are idjits. Unprepared for it, can't drive in it, can't walk in it (one maroon was wearing high heels, what in the name of all that is holy was she thinking??), don't want to shovel it, and of course - "can't remember the last time we had this much snow."

The man who said "Those who can't remember the past are doomed to repeat it" or words to that effect, was 110% correct. The more I watch, the more I am amused.

Yes, so much foolishness -- especially coming on the heals of last winter's storms (three historic storms in one season).

As for the woman in heels, a friend and I were talking about that phenomenon yesterday. A lot of people get in their cars in their garages at home and have the heated car seats blazing before they exit their driveway, get out of their cars in garages at work and don't go outside the entire day. So they don't wear boots or hats. Their coat may be inadequate for long durations, too.

Those are the folks most miserable during quarterly winter fire drills that force them to stand outside the office building for 30 minutes.

These people who got on the road after 4:00p knew it would be a slow drive home but they did not imagine it could be a 8-10-12 hour drive home.

No one did -- including the authorities.

Arent They illegal in some areas?

The genset is probably real sine wave AC, but the frequency is probably a bit off. I have a 12.5 kW diesel out back, when I bring it up my APC UPSs don't care for it unless it's within 1/2 (.5) cycles of 60 Hz, my genset holds between 60 and 61 Hz, as it gets above about 60.5 the UPSs get angry.

Bill

The New York area did not have quite so many rush hour problems, as most of the snow arrived overnight. We had about three inches of snow on Wednesday morning, followed by heavy sleet / freezing rain Wednesday night (complete with thunder and lightening - very impressive!).

5:45 am the phone rang, and it was the school district informing me that the kids would be home for the day. Powered up the iPad and saw that the LIRR was iffy to get the wife to work, and we agreed she'd be staying home. Sadly, the babysitter is home with a fever, so the wife and I have been tag-teaming the kids while each trying to get some minimum amount of work done.

The snow was impressive. We probably had a little over 12 inches in addition to what we had gotten Wednesday:

[img:left][/img]

My 4 1/2 year old tried to climb a snowdirft and got stuck:

[img:left][/img]

I decided to put him to work helping to dig out the car:

[img:left][/img]

About two hours later, we were in the clear:

[img:left][/img]

Much hot chocolate was consumed to celebrate digging out!

Stay warm everyone, and be careful on the roads!