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Much to do about nothing
The week after the Inauguration, President Obama made a bit of a splash in the DC area news by making some critical remarks about the inability of this region to cope with winter weather. As someone who grew up in Western New York, I can sympathize with what the President was saying, but I've lived here long enough now to recognize that that it simply is unreasonable to expect this area to cope as well as areas that deal with this weather on a more frequent basis. The local governments cannot afford to invest the same kind of money into snow removal that local governments further north do, when it might be used only three or four times a year. That simply isn't money well spent. So I try not to be critical.
However, I still find the responses to snow events in this area amusing. We have something like six inches of snow on the ground now, which has accumulated since yesterday evening. Pretty much all the area schools are closed, and the Federal Gov't is excusing up to two hours of late arrivals and allowing people to stay home without having prior approval for leave. But I made it to the Office at my usual time, walking through the snow to my bus stop, where my bus was pretty much right on time. No real hardship involved. Listening to others, you'd think that my arrival that early was some sort of amazing feat. Hmmph.
I also found the coverage on The Weather Channel last night annoying, so much so that I changed the channel after only about five minutes. They were hyping this as the "East Coast Mega-Storm" or something similar. Mega-Storm? To me that conjures up images of the Superstorm of March 1993. I was visiting a friend in Syracuse when that storm hit. Syracuse recorded 43 inches of snow in that storm, and it was truly massive in scale. By comparison, today's snow doesn't amount to much. This need to over-hype stories (which is probably driven by the chase for higher ratings and the corresponding increase in advertising revenue) is one of the things that annoys me most about the modern media, especially television news. It causes people to over-react and inspires a level of panic way out of proportion to events.
Okay, so six inches of snow in the Washington area does cause problems. I understand that it will take longer to plow and treat the roads, and that not all our drivers have the necessary experience to drive safely and comfortably in these conditions. But why do we have to act like its the end of the world every time it happens? I mean, really, just deal with it folks.
However, I still find the responses to snow events in this area amusing. We have something like six inches of snow on the ground now, which has accumulated since yesterday evening. Pretty much all the area schools are closed, and the Federal Gov't is excusing up to two hours of late arrivals and allowing people to stay home without having prior approval for leave. But I made it to the Office at my usual time, walking through the snow to my bus stop, where my bus was pretty much right on time. No real hardship involved. Listening to others, you'd think that my arrival that early was some sort of amazing feat. Hmmph.
I also found the coverage on The Weather Channel last night annoying, so much so that I changed the channel after only about five minutes. They were hyping this as the "East Coast Mega-Storm" or something similar. Mega-Storm? To me that conjures up images of the Superstorm of March 1993. I was visiting a friend in Syracuse when that storm hit. Syracuse recorded 43 inches of snow in that storm, and it was truly massive in scale. By comparison, today's snow doesn't amount to much. This need to over-hype stories (which is probably driven by the chase for higher ratings and the corresponding increase in advertising revenue) is one of the things that annoys me most about the modern media, especially television news. It causes people to over-react and inspires a level of panic way out of proportion to events.
Okay, so six inches of snow in the Washington area does cause problems. I understand that it will take longer to plow and treat the roads, and that not all our drivers have the necessary experience to drive safely and comfortably in these conditions. But why do we have to act like its the end of the world every time it happens? I mean, really, just deal with it folks.