http://www.wgntv.com/weather/chibrknews-lake-shore-drive-closed-due-to-blizzard-20110201,0,1675125.story

Wholly Bovine!

That picture says it all - excellent photo!

That kind of snow drifts you see in the picture (with all those funky shapes and cavities) can get surprisingly hard if the wind blows hard and long enough. Usually, you can forget about smashing through them with a vehicle - but it takes quite a bit of blowing to make them hard enough to walk on.


Oh, and in those conditions extremely fine powdered snow will make its way into every possible and some impossible openings. Pop the hood of any of those vehicles and you'll find a block of snow with an engine inside. That needs to get cleared out before you go anywhere.

Snow is amazing stuff.

I like the people that try to blast threw snow Mounds made by the plows that run infronta their driveways. They always get stuck and often tear their plastic bumper off.

Hmmmm..... I wonder how many of those people, in retrospect, thought that particular trip was really important?

"Many of those motorists have blamed the city for failing to close the drive and said there appeared to be no organized rescue plan."

There was a blizzard coming, everyone knew it, and yet they kept driving.

Sue

I'm impressed that the FD had snowmobiles. Do they have a winter racing team or something?

Folks are occasionally rescued from their cars during winter around here. It's not what you and your car can do, it's the accident somewhere in front of you that will create the stoppage. All it takes is ONE. (I hear this on my scanner a lot).

I was impressed that someone left there trucks windows down and the storm well left them a presant. That is a car that will be totaled when the show starts to melt.

Looking at the pictures of some of the higways I was impressed that I didn't even see ways to get around even if you had a truck or SUV that could deal with the snow depths. So even if you were prepaired and able to move, uness you had "Bigfoot" or "Gravedigger" you wernt' going anywhere.

Wow, that snow depth is insane.



I do that everyday in my jeep.

But NEVER when I borrow my parents' civic.

All it takes is some obstacle that creates less wind on the leeward side and you'll have a big snow bank right there. Just a slight depression so the wind isn't blowing as hard as everywhere else and the snow will accumulate.

It doesn't take much precipitation - the wind will collect it and basically dump it all in one place, right where you don't want it.

I read somewhere that the FD rented 200 of them (on a no bid basis of course) from a politically connected source at an insane price. But, that is about the only way anything happens in Chicago.

The same place reported the real problem was not the snow but that lake water was being blown up on LSD creating ice that actually led to the accidents that closed it down.

If you own snow mobiles, you may consider contacting your local emergency management office. They may like to have volunteers that would be willing to help out. Especially in areas where severe winter weather does not occur more than a few days on average over a few years.

Most places won't do this, but at least if you're part of emergency response before hand, it is really unlikely your equipment could be "borrowed" (with "just" compensation ) during a local state of emergency.