Snow Job

For those of you who don’t live in NY and don’t read the news or watch TV – well this winter we’ve got hammered here in NY with snow. First there was the day after Christmas blizzard. That was one especially fun because the sanitation workers decided to make a statement about the mayor’s budget cuts by having a slowdown. Most streets didn’t get plowed for days. Much of the mass transit system was completely shut down. It was a mess.

Then, every week since then, we’ve had a snowstorm. Luckily, there was such an outcry after that Christmas blizzard fiasco that everything was plowed normally (meaning within 24 hours, you could get around if you had to).

Because we’ve gotten so much snow over the past month, well… we’re running out of room. Most streets are down to one lane. Cars buried or parked practically in the middle of the street, causing the roads to be even more narrow. Turn lanes have disappeared. Corners have mountains well over 5 feet high which makes entering intersections quite interesting.

Then there are the idiots – the ones who clear off their property and toss the snow into the middle of the street. Yeah, I know I won’t mind hitting a 2 foot block of ice and ruining my car or getting stuck it in. And the people who drive SUVs who think they can go fast even in slush and on black ice and, so, they tailgate those who are driving at a reasonable speed. Yep, driving is an adventure.

Next up we come back to our wonderfully intelligent sanitation workers. They have been out with all sorts of trucks moving snow around. For reasons unknown, they decided they needed to clear a path by the school across the street:

I have no idea why they felt this was necessary because there is already a section cleared right in front of the school doors, 5 feet to the right of this path. More confusing, this path doesn’t really go anywhere other than just to the sidewalk. (It looks like it does but it only goes to the school yard which is filled with snow.) So why this needed to be cleared right here in this section – well it’s a mystery.

In doing this clearing off work, they have had the streets blocked for most of the morning. Other trucks blocked the other surrounding streets. It made getting to Church this morning very difficult for those not lucky enough to be within walking distance.

The best part? They dumped some of the snow back into the streets. That required them to lay down more salt. In some spots, it wasn’t just a little bit of snow:

They dropped these 2 boulders in front of my neighbor’s house. Those are a good foot & a half in diameter; too big to straddle if you don’t drive a large vehicle.

The piles of snow at the foot of our driveway are a good 4′ high. If it snows again, we’re in trouble. We’re a family of short people. There’s only so high we can reach. I don’t think we can lift shovels full of snow over our heads. So y’all better start doing your no-more-snow dances.