Well I say aftermath, but who knows, there could be more of the white stuff on the way. Whatever, lets look at it so far. Billions of pounds lost to a economy already in recession because of the authorities failure in being prepared to cope with ‘adverse weather conditions’ in relation to the transport network, and some peoples lack of resolve, and ‘blitz spirit’ when it came to the crunch. Schools closed, rubbish not collected. Who needs suicide bombers to bring a country and its infrastructure to a halt! Let’s see what happens when the snow starts to melt; I wonder how the drainage systems will cope especially after their failure to do so during the ‘adverse weather conditions’ a few years ago with the floods. Still at least the authorities have had a bit of time to make preparations and improvements, only time will tell whether it’s snowboards away, and surfboards out. Total wipeout!!
4 comments:
I can talk from a 'dung beetle's' perspective at the local council re this and that's all.
On Monday last we got sent home at midday as we'd run out of grit.
Everytime we delivered it to the grit bins the local population came out and nicked it in wheelbarrow loads to do their paths as opposed to us being able to do the pavements.
Unfortunately, the state of the roads made it very unsafe for the refuse crews to go out.
Face it, we're caught between a rock and a hard place on that 'cos if one of those had skidded and crushed a kid/buggy/mother/father/family whatever ? then there would have been hell to pay.
Tuesday we'd run out of grit so we got sent home earlier and the rest of the above paragraph applies.
Wednesday we got some more grit, but we also got more snow and Herts C.C. ran out of salt for the mix later in the day so the roads didn't get gritted making it even more dangerous.
Thursday we tried again, and got sent home lunchtime as roads were unfit for our vehicles which wouldn't drive in straight lines 'cos of the ice.
Friday we got sent home during the 9.00am blizzard.
Now none of this is an excuse, but it is all fact.
It took me personally one hour and twenty seven minutes to get to work on tuesday... A distance of 1.8 miles.
I beat my previous record by 14 mins.
Our biggest problem in this weather is the fact that our vehicles are now totally unsuitable for use on the cycle tracks as they are too tall to get under the underpasses, and the bins that need emptying aren't being done as any attempt to stop in them on the ice/snow usually meant a twenty yard slide into the kerb where some stupid sod was either walking or standing... I blame the bloody pedestrians, It's all their fault...
But seriously, what can we do ?
We have to put the safety of the workforce and the public before services ?
Herts C.C.'s gritting guys have been out all night on four days of last week and still the snow comes down.
It's a no win situation for everybody except the kids sent home from school, unfortunately.
Still... At least it looks pretty !
Washington DC closes down when it snows.Not as badly as London, but it is pretty funny to see. People refuse to remember how to drive in snow and ice and mass confusion results.
I live about 30 miles from London and we had about two inches of snow monday which had all melted away by Tuesday afternoon, every road I drove on Monday was fine.
Despite this most of the schools in my area were closed for 3 days which really seemed crazy on Wednesday as it was sunny and as I said totally snow free?
I'm from the NW U.S. and we get this kind of snow all the time but get by w/ no problems (because we use a fuckload of tax money to be prepared). On the other hand it only snowed twice during the time I lived in Tokyo and everybody freaked out and all the trains stopped running despite only a few centimeters accumulation. So I guess it's all about how regular your snowstorms are really.
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