The politicians and the weather forecasters were DE-LIGHTED yesterday, because disasters are good for business. “We’re gonna get THREE feet of storm. Lost of power. In 20 degree weather. There’s going to be frozen bodies and crashes and let’s talk about this endlessly during this four-hour press coverage. And make sure you get my good side.”
By 10 pm, it was clear that the storm was going to hit further North and just scratch New York City and the suburbs. This morning, the politicians and weather forecasters are in full butt-covering mode.
Steve and I are trying to work with the boys about. It’s not as challenging as it used to be, but there is still some parenting involved. I have to yell at Jonah to study for midterms, and we need to get Ian outside for a sled ride.
With all these people at home, it’s too distracting to do some proper writing. So, I’m defining “work” very loosely. Work involves shopping for a new light fixture for the entrance way, and for a round coffee table for the living room. Work includes rearranging the knickknacks on the fireplace mantle. It probably also involves playing with photographs in Lightroom. (I downloaded Lightroom a couple of weeks ago. It’s a HUGE improvement over PhotoShop Elements.) If there’s time in this very serious day, I need to figure out how to get the mothball smell out of an inherited set of bedroom dressers.
Apt. 11d 
As usual, when the government and the media agree on something–especially when you have federal, state and local governments working together–you can be pretty sure it’s a big lie.
LikeLike
The storm is still pretty damned big and nasty. I’m in the middle of it right now, less than 200 miles away from you. Forecasting tracks is hard. Forecasting the “bombogenesis” of this storm–they were dead on.
LikeLike
Yeah, Long Island got hammered. It’s hard to do it all exactly right.
LikeLike
I’m cutting the weather forecasters and government some slack, too. They can only guess at the speed and direction a storm will blow. We have close to two feet of snow here and more coming down and although the wind is negligible here, there are white-out conditions an hour north.
It’s all perfectly lovely from my living room, but it would be a nightmare if people were commuting and I’m grateful the city and state called a state of emergency yesterday instead of at 4 am or not at all. My employer used to have us coming in when it was downright dangerous.
LikeLike
I can’t even what TV news anymore, especially local news. It feels like a deliberate attempt to make me old by making me afraid of everything.
LikeLike
It’s interesting, though hardly surprising, that there is snow in New England in January. I don’t see what it has to do with shutting down the subways and the streets in New York City, however. It seems as if every government agency is more and more being run for the convenience of the government employees, and the public be damned.
LikeLike
I’ve lived in Maine, and I live in SE Mass. In Maine, yes, they’re used to snow. The investment in snow clearing equipment is greater, everyone is super experienced, and it all goes pretty smoothly. I assume the same is for Vermont, NH, and some areas of central and western MA. But in the bigger cities of Boston and Providence and areas towards the Cape, this is a big deal because there are a lot of people driving about and major public transit systems and not quite as much investment in snow removal.
I’m sorry that NYC didn’t get the Superstorm Sandy of blizzards and everyone is disappointed. But just remember the disastrous snowstorm in 2010 when Brooklyn went unplowed and cars were stuck in the middle of streets for days. Remember when everyone complained that emergency vehicles couldn’t get through. Nat Grid is actually keeping the power on in most of our area, which is great, because they’ve learned a few things. Two years ago, we lost power for almost 2 days and it was pretty freakin’ cold, and we’re a family that keeps our thermostat at 67 regularly.
Our public schools are canceled for tomorrow already. Not sure about my university’s classes yet (they’ll wait till 4 or so to make that decision). But there is a freakin’ lot of snow to move around, and a lot of cars that need to be parked in order for a successful workday to result. And right now we’re in a windy snowy part of the storm. My poor dog.
LikeLike
Yeah.
We went through a DC metro blizzard when our oldest was a baby and discovered that the snow plan in those parts is “wait for it to melt.” (And that even seemed to be the case in suburban Maryland, not just DC.)
LikeLike
I hate the media hype but am not sure what I think about the government/crisis response. After disasters like Katrina, Fukashima, and Sandy am I glad that they know how to take Pilgrim Nuclear offline? Yes. Managing risks means some management of risks that don’t pan out, too. I think I’d have to see better data before I decided that we’ve tipped the balance in the wrong direction.
The hype, though, especially the hype that has me paying attention (from the other side of the country, where we’re having unseasonably warm weather) is nuts. And, there are some things that you shouldn’t do, even though you can. My spouse has an office in another city, and, with the advent of a new voip phone system, he got at least 6 messages about a delay in the office opening, because of the last ice storm prediction. (text, home, mobile, email, office DC, office here).
LikeLike
Some years ago, one of my cousins had given out her grandparents’ number in WA as an emergency contact number while she was studying in TX. Her TX college sent out a mass messaging, alerting everybody that there was a tornado warning. Her grandpa in WA got the message and was unnecessarily panic-stricken.
(I actually really like the college emergency bulletins. I’m not a cable TV or local news person, so I’d be totally oblivious otherwise.)
LikeLike
The above link says what I think. It’s easy for salaried professionals to say, “O, let’s shut down the subway and everyone stay home where it’s safe,” but most working class people don’t get paid if they don’t get to work. It’s clear from the linked article that the decisions are driven primarily by administrative convenience for government agencies, not by concern for the public good.
LikeLike
accurate weather prediction is hard, so I don’t much fault people for not getting things exactly right, but I do fault the Weather Channel and local news people for the stupid sensationalism of the sort that does no good (except, I suppose, for their ratings) and probably does some harm. I think there’s also a tendency to over-predict, because people get more upset if things are worse than expected rather than the other way around. As for the government reaction, much of it tends to have the formula of “We must do something. This is something, therefore, we must do it.” SEPTA, for example, put the regional rail system on a Saturday schedule yesterday (for what turned out to be about 2 inches of snow.) You might have thought that _more_ trains would be needed, not fewer, if people could not drive. Last winter, they did okay (as well as could be expected) with much bigger storms without doing that. The logic of it was, to say the least, not at all clear. (That, and Penn emailing me ever 1.5 hours to say that they hadn’t decided whether to close the school yet or not, were my high-lights.)
LikeLike