DC Snow Turns Into Disastrous Situation

A snowstorm today that in terms of accumulation was not in the same league as last winter's "Snowpocalypse" (Feb 2010) or "Snowmageddon" (Dec 2009), has caused what may turn out to be the worst gridlock this metropolitan area has ever experienced.

The snow -- extremely wet, tree-busting snow -- starting falling hard about 3:00p in the western suburbs. It was most intense between 4:00p-7:00p (rush hours). It ended around 11:30p From a few inches in DC to 8-10" further out, a foot in some places 50 miles west of the Beltway. Some weather forecasters (such as The Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang) nailed the forecast (which I circulated to all my friends and posted on Facebook).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/?sub=AR

Best wishes to anyone still struggling to get home. A friend of mine left her office in Rockville at 3:00p. As of midnight she still was not close to getting home (Damascus) -- an 18 mile drive. She's supposed to call me when she gets home (it's now 2:00a). Her husband is stranded in Leesburg, VA -- catching a few hours sleep at a gas station.

Her 8 months pregnant daughter-in-law is in a car somewhere with a non-functioning cell phone. She was last heard from several hours ago.

Car-bus crashes, downed power lines, exploding transformers, stuck and abandoned vehicles.

Many cars ran out of fuel.

Hundreds of thousands without power. Emergency vehicles can't get to fires, crashes and heart attack victims. It is a disaster scene still unfolding.

I'm listening to Fairfax County (VA) Police radio -- the chatter is incredible. The snow stopped two hours ago yet I-66 inside the Beltway is paralyzed. The GW Parkway northbound is closed (trees). Side streets impassable. Temps now below freezing....

I walk to work and our power lines are underground so have been blessedly immune from this nightmare. Sympathies to the millions who are significantly impacted.

There will be extensive Monday morning quarterbacking and after-action reports on what went wrong (decision to close Fed Gov't mid-afternoon, snow plow-salting strategies and execution, variance in forecaster predictions, the folly of individuals with ill-equipped vehicles and poor snow driving skills....)

No one expected this disastrous degree of gridlock.

Its sad to see how people underestimate the power of nature. I do not understand how people still block out the possibility of these types of things and end up in such predicaments.I can understand leaving before a storm and getting trapped in it but wonder what the thought process is when people leave in the middle of such storms. I wonder how many businesses would allow workers to stay overnight if storms of such magnitude catch people before they leave?

So many just won't believe it until they see it -- forecasts be darned (some were more dire than others). But with the storm peaking during the rush hour(s), delaying the drive home even an hour made several hours difference in when people got home.

I think we're going to find that a cascading series of decisions -- government, organizational (employers), individual -- turned a modest storm into a terrible situation for the hundreds of thousands of people on the roads.

The power outage situation is also quite severe. Power outages were expected -- the forecast was for wet snow -- but I think the extent of those has also been something of a surprise.

I urge people who don't have 4x4 to get tire chains and carry them all winter. They aren't expensive and are priceless when you need them. But I don't know anyone besides myself here who has tire chains. My Honda Element is terrific in the snow without chains but my years on Mt. Hood made me a believer in preparing for the worst possible situation.

February is when we've gotten some of our biggest snows (Snowpocalypse 2010) so I'm going to write up a vehicle preparedness list that my friends here might possibly make a dent on in the next couple weeks.

They should now be receptive to the notion.

A lot of newer cars you can't even put on tire chains, there just isn't room between the tire and fender, clearance is tight to prevent air from getting in to get than extra .0001mpg.

I've noticed that people just don't obey the rules/laws or the roads when it snows, run stop signs more than usual, drive in the middle of two lanes, etc. Last week twice I came to an intersection and the sign showing the lanes was clearly visible but a vehicle was in the middle between them, I went to the side that was widest to make the other lane and they looked at me like I was the one at fault then they went straight through the left turn ony lane when the light turned green.

A teachable moment, for some of course - we've found that asking volunteers to estimate their mobility immediately after a bad weather event (snow) gives everyone a more reliable sense of availability for the next event. All the volunteers in the world are worthless if they can't get to your shelter to work. You can also make plans to move necessary people around - 4x4 pickups along snow routes for example. The same folks responding as little as a month later tend to overestimate their ability to respond in a similar event.

If your friends aren't receptive to personal preparedness and responsibility for the next snowpocalypse (snow chains, a car kit and a full gas tank to creep down the snowy road), this might get them thinking about a more communal approach for the next one (like proactively taking a work from home day the day before snow, or better plans for sheltering in place, and keeping folks off the roads during the snow event).

Stay warm!

We are on the eastern side of the DC suburbs, about 22 miles east. Locally, the weather folks hit the amount of snow on the head. they said 4-6 and I have 5 inches at my house. They totally missed the timing and how fast it would come down, and the impact of the ice during rush hour. We had rain all day and during the rush hour locally it switched to snow, but with an hour or so of ice in between, totally destroying rush hour.

Oddly, I got home in about the usual time. My route is against the traffic flow and my Forester did not have a problem with the ice/snow/slush.

About an hour and a half after getting home, the power went out. As of 7:15 AM as I write this, power is still out. My big 2010 prep upgrade, a natural gas powered automatic generator, has been humming away since then, keeping heat, hot water, and other critical items powered (e.g. internet and computers)running.

So instead of wrestling the generators into position and putting down the cables, I got a good night's sleep.

The road in front of my suburban home has been plowed and sanded down to bare pavement. Much of what was on the road is now blocking my driveway, so the next thing is to crank up the snow blower and clear that stuff out.

Generally, everything went well. The only odd thing was that my DW's computer is on a battery UPS system, but even though it was getting power from the generator, it refused to send enough to the computer to let it boot. I bypassed the UPS and it now boots fine. Time for a new UPS or is this normal???

That sounds to me like your UPS needs a new battery - you can sometimes separately source the battery from aftermarket suppliers, or just get a new UPS. You can also check to see if your computer draws more than the UPS is designed for. A few months ago I bought a UPS which failed at a short power blink in November - turns out it arrived with a mostly dead battery. Another round trip to Fry's. Annoying.

Its normal for some brands of UPS, generator power is noisy and some are too sensitive and will never switch back to line.

Your Generator is probably producing a Modified Sine Waveform rather than a pure 60Hz sine waveform power. Your UPS probably doesn't like all the additional power harmonics. Some devices such as computers, digital TVs, Hi-Fi's etc just don't like modified sine wave power although it sounds like the computer is able to handle the output from the generator although the computer PSU may eventually object as it overheats rejecting the spurious power harmonics. Some devices such as Kill-A-Watt meters really object (start to smolder) when connected to Modified Sine wave power.

Nearly Half a Million households without electricity is certainly a potential disaster especially with the long term forecasts predicting the cold weather to last until April. How long will it take to get all these homes and businesses connected back to the electricity grid as it seems many transformers have been damaged.

http://www.accuweather.com/video/90811342001/weak-storms-through-the-weeken.asp

A large metropolitan suburban area without electricity for a couple of weeks with very cold/stormy/wintry weather due in the next week could prove to be very trying for many especially without other heating and cooking resources.

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!

I guess some people need them to be longer and more frequent. Those who are out of touch with reality are the ones I find most irritating.

Sue

Hopefully you won't have to do the same next week. There looks to be the potential for an even more intense blizzard next Wednesday. One to keep an eye on once more.

http://www.accuweather.com/video/655578741001/three-more-storms-on-the-horiz.asp

What sort of time scale will the mains electricity repairs take for the nearly half million households affected. Folks will tend to get a little upset by the 3rd day with no power.

It's sunny and in the mid-60's here. My garden is looking great. Tonight when I get home from the cannery I'll probably sit out on the back patio in a thin jacket and have a cold beer.

And I still keep "winter" gear(shovel, ice scraper, hats, mittens, blankets, food, water, etc...) in my truck.

-Blast

There's a "brand new" 10 year old ice scraper under the seat of my truck . . been there 10 years I recently had to pull everything out of the bed to haul some stuff so I took the opportunity to repack and tighten it up. Good stuff in there. One container of truck stuff, two containers of me stuff and a duffel of winter clothes. My GHB rides separate.

It's 79F here now, will get a tad below 50F tonight; the beer is cold...

Maybe this will do the trick Izzy. I've never been more scared than during the 2003 East Coast blackout, when I couldn't feed my baby. I vowed then and there that nothing like that would ever happen again.

Izzy,

Organic evaporated milk is available.

The first thing this page mentions is SWEETENED CONDENSED milk, but if you go all the way to the bottom, you'll see that they also have regular evaporated milk.

Sue

Compounding my friend's anxiety while trying to get home was not being able to reach her 8 months pregnant daughter-in-law who was also struggling with her commute -- whose cell phone battery had run out and she did not have a charger in the car. It took her several hours to get home from the office and she was without a working phone most of that time.

We're only half way through the prime snow season here, so my friend would like to quickly assemble a car kit for her daughter to have in the car at all times (another phone charger was purchased today). And she wants to build a kit for after the baby is born.

I don't have children so would very much appreciate the advice of mothers and fathers (and others with knowledge, of course, such as EMTs) on this forum as to what a woman who is 8 months pregnant should have in the car that's in addition to what everyone should have.

Also, what should be in a car kit for the baby once she/he is a passenger?

1) 8 months pregnant car kit

2) infant car kit


Obviously it would vary somewhat in summer as opposed to winter, but I'm frankly not sure how much.

The baby is due to be born on February 22.

That's too bad Izzy. "Live and Learn" is what "they" always say but sadly, "they" are either in the minority or don't practice what they preach.

I was in the dentist office today and read an article in Canadian Living Magazine. (A generalist magazine, geared to women, focused healthy eating, family life, fashion, weight-loss, etc. Not at all survival focused but often also containing articles or at least ads for 72 HR Canada) The article recommended "purging all canned food from your kitchen" because it's high in sodium. (To be fair, they said "kitchen" not "pantry" but the difference will be lost on most.) It seems counter to their consistently seasonal advice to stock up on supplies for emergencies. I realize canned good aren't the be all and end all BUT they do address the cost issue and are pretty easy to procure and store. Of course, organic evaporated or condensed milk will probably still seem to expensive if someone already has the mindset that extra supplies are an unnecessary expense.

For a pregnant women, I'd start with the standard set-up but add extra food and water, suncreen (in the summer), maxi/bladder pads and emergency birthing supplies.

It will vary by age and personal preferance, but for an infant kit, I'd start with: diapers, wipes, cream, plastic bags, formula, bottles, water, extra sleepers, socks and blankets, a soother and a sling or chest/back child carrier.

Even our Lead Politician was delayed by this mess.

http://thevalleyhitmusic.com/2011/01/27/president-obamas-motorcade-stuck-in-heavy-snow-in-d-c/

Not sure how they know where to go without getting stuck themselves.

I don't know why, but snow chains seem taboo to everyone not on the west coast. I grew up in SoCal, where they were mandatory in the mountains during winter. My wife, from Wisconsin, said no one ever uses them, or even buys them. Wierd.

I'm pretty sure my truck could have gone where I needed to, but yeah, I have a 25 mile commute. Who knows how long that would have taken. Chances are, I would have just stayed in the clinic and grabbed an exam bed for some sleep. Not my first nap in a clinic/hospital.

Another pet peeve about AWD/4WD vehicles. Most people thing it makes them invincible, that they "can go anywhere." Um, yeah. 4-wheel drive is not the same as 4-wheel STOP. Who cares how fast you're going when you ram into something and bust your car?

As for your 8-mo preggers friend. There's nothing special she'll need. A blanket, hat, some clothes for the kid. Her god-given baby-feeders can feed the baby til help comes. If she feels better, fine, grab some formula and a bottle. Diapers too, but baby poop in a newborn isn't usually copious, so a few of those is fine. The problem is delivering the kid.
http://www.med-worldwide.com/obstetrical-ob-kit-sealed-standard-28-4440010-p63349

Some in boxed/bagged, and extra goody versions. But useless if someone wont' step up and play catcher as she's pushing the kid out.

Add to baby gear:

Infant Acetaminophen and/or Ibuprofen and a dosing chart from your doctor. They don’t mark the dosage for under 2 years old on the package. It might be hard to “ask your doctor” if you're stranded.

You can never have enough diapers and wipes. Include several sizes from newborn on up, they outgrow them fast and one that's too large is much better than two that are too small.

EXTRA CLOTHES! They WILL have an explosion the one time you leave the house without extra clothes. See above for sizes.

AMEN!

LOL -- I'll definitely put that on the list.

Thanks, all!


:-)

I don't have kids so can't comment there. But one thing that I think every vehicle kit should have is a small am/fm battery radio, that way one can keep up with the news without running the car battery down.

http://www.petzl.com/us/outdoor/headlamps/signal-and-elite/elite

I have a couple of these and if I were putting together a car kit, this multi-purpose head light would be on top of the list. I carry one set of extra batts, so I would have at least 70 hours of use. There is a flasher mode in both red and clear. Just a great little light for any kit and especially the vehicle kit.

Yoare correct; the e-light is a fine headlamp. My only problem is that it uses batteries that are not compatible with the rest of my electronic goodies - I tend to standardize on AAA battereis for radio, GPS, and lights.

Fortunately, there are lots of good headlamps available to suit just about any taste and pocketbook. They are always useful.

I'm probably too old-fashioned for most here, but WHY is an 8-mo preggie commuting during a storm??? That baby could come anytime, and stress could probably set her off. Being stuck in snow with nothing but businessmen and truck drivers around seems like a really stupid idea, to me.

A little common sense would be a good idea: watch the weather forecast, don't think they've got it down to the hour, if bad weather is coming relatively soon, don't go to work. I'm sure she isn't THAT indispensable, even if she thinks she is.

Ask her EXACTLY what she intends to do if she goes into labor in the car, stuck in a snowstorm, and no one can find her or get to her. I'll bet this is her first baby and she doesn't really have a clue. Let's toss this in: BREECH BIRTH!

Sue

Even taking the financial aspects out of it, careers are justifiably important to a lot of women (me included) and it’s not always possible to take time off and advance your career. And there were literally thousands stuck in that mess in the metro DC area.

Just about all of that, and more, was conveyed to her (and daddy) already, by a number of people.

Moving on...

Whether she's driving alone (or should be), or is a passenger, she needs an emergency kit in the car. And she'll need even more in the kit when she has an infant in there with her.

I'm now reminded that everyone I can think of has worked right up until the birth -- so they could take the maximum time off after the baby was born.

And some of them had long, solo commutes. One of them gave birth on September 11, 2001.

Thankfully, she had stayed home that day. Her daughter was born in the evening.

The biggest concern people had in this snow situation was that she didn't have a cell phone charger in the car and so they could not talk to her. But she was in an urban traffic jam - surrounded by drivers with cell phones -- women and men. Lots of peops to call 911 (the ambulance getting to her still being an issue).

In this snow gridlock, whether you went into labor in the car or at home, you were going to have a heck of a time getting to the hospital.

Tough business being a mom, working or not. Which is why I've stuck with dogs.

:-)

Common sense seems rare in a lot of places.

I've been about 20 miles from home when it started to snow. Given the option, I left work and drove home. When I left, the roads were semi-ok to bad. If I waited, the extra 6 hours = frozen slush, abandoned cars, in little words "the suck". However, should I have had to walk, I was ready with boots, wind pants, a small pack with necessaries, and I knew the shortest route home with shortcuts I can't drive. No shorts and sneakers for me, altho I know people who wear them year round (called dullards).

I will gladly give up cash for safety. Some people may not have that luxury, but DW and I decided a long time ago, being alive is better than being rich.

It wasn't all that long ago that Raleigh had a storm predicted for 2 inches that dropped 10. School kids never made it home, the buses turned around and went back to the schools. Smart decision I say. Not in traffic, no accidents, no running out of gas - school was warm, slept on gym mats, had food. And yet parents whined.

Being prepared, dressing for the weather and knowing when to just sit tight, all common sense

"Even taking the financial aspects out of it, careers are justifiably important to a lot of women (me included) and it’s not always possible to take time off and advance your career. And there were literally thousands stuck in that mess in the metro DC area."

And where does a dead or damaged baby fit into the emotional equation? If a woman is that desperate for her career, she should stay on reliable birth control. That way, she doesn't need to take Careful Time off, Birth Time off, or After-Birth Time off, and the baby isn't raised by a series of strangers.

SuperWoman is a myth. People need to choose their priorities.

Sue

Yes and no. Most women don't pop out a kid in 20 minutes. Now granted, it would likely be several hours of labor, and bad things happen, but it's her choice. Remember Women's Lib and all that?

Modern Hospital Technology does speed up the process though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arCITMfxvEc

Hadn't occurred to me that this could turn into a thread trashing working mothers.

This turn in the conversation is disappointing and not constructive.

Working mothers raised my mom and dad and a working mother raised me, my brother and my sister. If we suffered for that I have no recollection and there is no evidence.

Advice on assembling a car survival kit to help pregnant women and women with infants in the car-- whether or not they are driving the car -- would actually be useful and relevant to Equipping to Survive.


:-/

Of course what none of know is the condition of her pregnancy, the current evaluation by her OB=GYN, etc.. Do we even know if this is her first or tenth? This would be useful information in a meaningful critique.

With my wife's first pregnancy, we were living 150 miles from the doctor and our winter residence. I was out in the field all summer. A week before the birth, we had seen the doc and he had cleared us to return home, advising us to return if labor commenced. It did - the waters broke about 3 AM and we commenced our trip in a rainstorm, making it in plenty of time for a hospital birth. We knew the location of every hospital along the way (Globe to Flagstaff, AZ) and I had received training in emergency childbirth. I kept saying "Don't drop the baby, don't drop the baby." The doctor's evaluation of the course of the pregnancy was right on and we had a normal delivery. I didn't even faint....

My favorite story concerns Geronino's band of combatants after their final surrender in Mexico, under escort and returning to the US. While on the march, one of the women (most of the group were noncombatants) veered away from the group.

What's going on? inquired one of the officers. "you'll see," answered one of the group. Thirty minutes later the woman caught up with the group, carrying a newborn. Now that is the very definition of tough....

Trying to get the thread back on the subject of a kit rather than a critique.

While this list appears to be geared toward air travel it might be helpful for a start in putting together a car kit.

http://www.essortment.com/family/checklistinfant_smjd.htm

Yes and no. Epidurals tend to slow the process if vaginal delivery is planned.

While Susan's point is quite valid, it all comes back to people in general not planning ahead for the unexpected. Which is why this site should be mandatory reading for everyone. :-D

Back on topic, I am lucky enough to be able to work from home when the weather is bad, although I do enjoy driving in the snow (when there's no traffic). I am grateful for those who cannot do so and must venture out to keep the world running and keep people alive. My neighbor who is an RN had to drive to her shift into the teeth of this storm. She said the worst part was not being able to see the road for the conditions.

There was an article in the Baltimore Sun yesterday about the people still without power, and how awful the local utility is for not having power completely restored yet. I commented on their website that some simple preparations would make that situation a lot safer for people in the dark, and quite a bit more comfortable. I was gratified to see how many people responded positively to the comment.