I hear they're picking on us up in Beantown, rank amateurs that we are down here in NYC when it comes to snow removal. We took it on the chin, no doubt about it; as I write, a good day and a half since the white started falling, my Brooklyn block remains unplowed, virgin powder from end to end, except for some tracks down the middle. Things haven't changed much since last night, when a boxer came around doing sprints through the snow exhorted by his trainer: run to the corner, a combination—jab, jab, one, two, three—and then back. [That's him in the picture.] Lucky he didn't keel over, because EMS would still be trying to get here.
We're not completely housebound, fortunately. SF and I did met up for some hand-pulled noodles in Chinatown this afternoon. That hit the spot. Knicks in Miami tonite. Bring on the heat.
20 replies on “The Great White Hope”
I spent the entire day plowing my driveway and those of my neighbors, so I feel the pain. At least you live in a place that most everything is accesible by foot power.
My wife has the most useless car ever (Jetta), so I HAVE to plow things.
If it were up to me, I’d throw it in 4×4, drive over and through it, and just wait for it to melt!
On another note, the John Deer snowblower I picked up is the one of the best investments I have EVER made. 10hp, 26″ cut, and will throw snow 50′.
Brad, the JD you have can throw farther than the JD the Sox and Yankees had.
ZING!
In Southeastern Virginia where I live we got hit pretty hard (up to 18 inches in some parts) and I have to say that, considering that some local communities have minimal snow removal budgets, they seemed to have done good job removing snow.
We drove to New Hampshire to visit family this week and out of the states we drove through up 95 yesterday, NY seemed to have done the best job of removing snow, at least on the interstate.
I don’t know what you’re talking about, NY does a bang up job with snow removal!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt_r-jO3lKE&feature=player_embedded
I have to say I don’t really fault NYC for the actions during and immediately after the blizzard. The snow came at a crazy rate, and there were trucks starting down our neighborhood early on, so they were ready and moving. But when it snows at something like 1.5″ per hour for a good 8 hours straight it is damn near impossible to keep up, and cars that were left behind were just dead meat and impediments to the city. I grew up outside Boston, went to school in the Berkshires, and those moaning about “soft” New Yorkers are off-base – we got walloped.
As the days go on, though, my opinion of the enduring response is less forgiving – they still haven’t plowed our street in Brooklyn, which to me seems problematic. And ramrodding SUVs while moving excavators seems a bit, uh, clumsy.
I thought it was pretty funny to hear in the same newscast down here in West Texas a year-in-review of the weather in which they commented on “snowdrifts as deep as 7 inches” back in February, then ended with criticizing New Yorkers for how they remove snow. Seriously, if you don’t even know what a foot of snow looks like, you need to chill out about how other people handle their three-foot blizzards.
We have no such issues in Buffalo…
Getting a snow day where I grew up was nearly impossible. I know this sounds like a “walked uphill both ways” story, but I grew up (about 50 miles east of Krueg) in a lake-effect area. It snows a lot. And it was a bummer because I would sit by the radio _after_ I delivered my morning paper route on un-plowed streets hoping for a day off. But it rarely happened. And that was only when it was so deep that the buses lot couldn’t be cleared in time or there was a freezing rain. And even then it was more likely to be an hour delay.
Now I live in a city where panic starts at 34 degrees. I sure don’t miss shoveling.
I hear you AG…I didn’t have a single snow-day all four years of High School in the suburbs of Buffalo. Not one.
Hell, I got my drivers license in the snow.
I understand that it is just a matter of appropriate preparedness based on reasonable expectation. It snowed all the time, so we usually had tools where I grew up. That said, sometimes, you can’t have the right tools, for I do remember the blizzard of 77, which was truly awesome. Google it. In retrospect, the rest of the time, it was pretty cool that our tiny town had the hardware on line to kick the living crap out of most storms thrown our way. But in that case we were completely consumed by snow, cold, wind and more snow, and the roads were just *gone*. And there was no viable response.
That blizzard is one of my first memories…insane. My grandfather owned a factory and my father and uncle went onto the roof to shovel off the snow and then jumped off the 40 foot roof into snow banks…then back up and did it again. There had to be 15 feet of snow between what was on the ground and what they pushed off the roof!
Yeah, places like Buffalo and Roch know how to handle snow, people are used to it and life goes on…
i remember 77. the snow outside our building was over my head.
My parents still tell the tale of being out of class at Southern Conn. State for a week after the blizzard of 77. I always remember hoping that we would get but with a storm like that. Closest we came was in March of 1996, I think? So much snow, the melt flooded our basement.
I remember it being the blizzard of ’78, I think school was closed for like three days, cars abandoned on Route 128. To Wikipedia!
Yes, ’78.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeastern_United_States_blizzard_of_1978
i grew up in upstate ny, then moved to conn as an adult for work…i moved south a few years ago…i miss the snow, i don’t miss the snow…i’m torn…like krueg, i don’t remember too many school off snow days as a child, but when we got ’em it was party time…had to help my dad clean the driveway and sidewalk, but then it was toboggans, sleds, snowmobiles…i remember 1 snow day from work in ny, and 1 in conn, and a couple “early releases”…i missed ’77/’78…was still in ny…
If it even threatens to snow here…they close everything down. I love it.
PLUS, a couple rednecks kill themselves on the snow/ice so that’s a bonus! ;)
That Wikipedia entry about the severity of the blizzard is actually pretty sobering, and should relegate Ed Rendell’s comments about the “wussification” of the US (because of the postponement of the Eagles game) to the dustbin of moronic politician-speak. Dolt.