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Some thoughts about Stormageddon

Posted by Michael James on Feb. 3, 2011

In no particular order -

1)  Kudos to the meteorologists (note that I did NOT says the news departments) at the TV stations.  They nailed just about everything about this storm; from the mini pre-storm Monday night, to the start time, severity and snowfall amounts of the blizzard itself.

2)  Not sure what a "Civil Danger Warning" is, or why it would be needed.  I would think that most people that experience an average of 2" per hour snowfall, sideways at 50 MPH at 3:00 AM might think that it is pretty darned dangerous.

3)  I can't tell to what extent I should praise or damn the TV news departments.  They covered the storm all right, had lots of good video (especially the freeway traffic cameras) and were up-to-date with the list of closings, as well as alerted everybody about the dangers.  But those news anchors.... we gotta begin teaching them that if the words aren't on the teleprompter to shut their mouths.  I don't know how many times I heard an anchor throw it to a reporter or a weatherman with some inane blather like "Man, it sure looks pretty, but there's so much of it".  Worse, is that the coverage went on a little too long.  I was done plowing, snow blowing, shoveling and salting my property by about Noon, and the anchors continued to prattle away.  By Noon, there was nothing else to say, but they kept saying it.

4)  Know what was more cooler than watching the news Tuesday night, while the storm was in full force?  I was watching the Twitter hash #mkesnow, and was checking Facebook regularly.  Lots of good comments, feedback and photos.

5)  I think the road crews, in general, did a very good job getting the streets cleared up.  I left my home around 3:30 PM to help dig out the in-laws, and was surprised about how passable the freeways and streets were.

6)  It was kinda cool - in a surreal way - driving west on Howard between 6th and 13th Streets.  The cemetery on the north side of the street had caused a mountainous drift, and the road was down to a single lane passing through.  Felt like the road had been carved from a white rock that extended much higher than the car.

7)  I generally think it was good that the busses didn't run at all on Wednesday.  Many argue about what Milwaukee's (or anyone's) transit system is intended to serve (Travel to businesses?  Transportation for workers?  Tourism?  Transit to shopping?  Any or all of the above?) but it is safe to say that with most businesses closed, nobody really needed to go anywhere.  Keeping the busses off the streets gave snow removal crews one less set of obstacles.

8)  On the other hand, no amount of Roseann St. Aubin preening will justify the closures of Milwaukee Public Schools today.  The sound clip I heard was that waiting for busses might be dangerous because they might be late.  Boo hoo.  Give Zach or Dakota an extra scarf and get them off to school.  Good thing that MPS builds banking days for this (What's that?  A banking day gave the kids off of school on October 1?  How many snowstorms are there in September?  Sigh.)

9)  West Allis/West Milwaukee schools though... GOOD JOB!  The doors are open and kids are learning.  I am sure that there are a number of school kids that aren't in school because of one reason or another, but the kids that ARE there are the ones benefitting.

10)  My bowling league did not cancel league last night.  Very disappointing.  Sure, about 50 of the 60 guys (including me) made it to league on time, but about 45 of those guys were grunting about how they're in no shape to bowl after pushing two feet of drifting snow all day.

11)  Speaking of Twitter, I had posted a photo of the plow clearing my driveway, and that post (and photo) was picked up by the Toronto Star.  Now I am an International Twit!

12)  JSOnline had once again posted links to a story about the 1947 blizzard, which also had accompanying photos and video (the Robert Manthey one was awesome).  I spent a lot of time looking at that stuff, and you know what?  This week's blizzard was probably just as bad.  We had photos of people standing next to drifts higher than their heads, we had buried cars, other cars abandoned in the road, and all sorts of people shoveling.  The main differences over 64 years?  Snow blowers, better tires, and blonde bombshells on TV telling us to bundle up.

13)  Police Chief Ed Flynn was on one particular news report that I was watching, and he said something along the lines that the weather was making a good crime deterrent, allowing his officers help citizens.  I was a little concerned about the supposed baggage Flynn brought with him from the east coast, but I am learning to really like him.

14)  Although I didn't spend a lot of time indoors yesterday (between clearing my snow, the in-laws and going bowling) I did have a couple of hours where I was searching for a good Snow Day Theater movie.  Closest I found was Airport '75.

15)  Which is a good segue, as I was scheduled to fly yesterday through O'Hare into Knoxville, TN (to visit one of our factories located there).  Because of the schedules, we booked a one-way ticket to Knoxville on United, and a return one-way from Knoxville on Friday afternoon on American.  Both airlines had our flight days as ones in which we could make changes with no penalty.  I first called United, and they refunded the entire cost of our non-refundable ticket.  Then I called American, and they would only allow us to move the flight back to Sunday.  They didn't care that we wouldn't actually get to Knoxville by Sunday... but if we didn't travel by Sunday, it would cost $150 to change our $120 ticket.  Guess which of those two airlines will receive more of my loyalty.

By Saturday (or maybe Sunday morning), I will have my yearly objective analysis of the Super Bowl, so that you can make your wagers (for entertainment purposes only) with confidence.

I have been Twittering a little more lately, feel free to follow me at http://twitter.com/mjames1229