So, we had a bit of a snowstorm the other day here in the midwest, and I got up and went to work the next day.
However, UPS decided my whistle could sit in Salina Kansas an extra day because of the extraordinary storm…
Probably the only positive is that my wife, who really doesn’t like whistling in the house (she says it much better out in the woods, or in a field, when she is standing a good 30 yards away) won’t have to hear me trying out a new whistle on Valentine’s Day.
Oh well, back to waiting…I wonder when UPS will feel it’s safe to drive across Kansas again.
At least UPS waited for the weather to arrive before shutting down.
This is from yesterday. (emphasis added)
The Federal government in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area closed at 2:00 p.m. today, Tuesday, February 13 due to > pending > > inclement weather. Visit the OPM web site for status updates, > http://www.opm.go> v[/size]
Geez . This seems like the sort of thing one might encounter in a novel about some struggling nation being taken over by a madman or something like that. Just a quiet little coup. I hope someone told Homeland Security about this .
I fail to see the humor in this. Do you think they should let 1/4" of ice accumulate and THEN put a few hundred thousand people on the roads? The storm had already hit in the Virginia suburbs (where a significant fraction of Federal workers live) when the decision was made to close the Government, and it had hit DC and the Maryland suburbs by the time workers were sent home.
Do you wait till a tornado is in your yard before going to the basement, or might you take shelter when one has been spotted in your town or neighborhood?
I’m sorry, chas. I did not mean to be rude. I do understand that driving in freezing rain conditions is impossible and that people have to get home before the ice starts accumulating on the road.
What I was laughing at was the fact that the sign said that the Federal government had closed at 2 PM rather than that the Federal government offices had closed at 2 PM. It was the lack of distinction between the Federal government and the office buildings and daily services of the Federal government which seemed quite odd and funny to me. The Federal government does not close. Its offices may do if the weather is bad. However, I notice that you do not make that distinction, so possibly it is not a distinction that is made in all parts of the country.
I did express my sympathy for those east of me experiencing bad weather in izzy’s thread this morning.
While it’s not funny, it is interesting how Federal offices in Baltimore and DC will close earlier than they do in other parts of the county. I work for the Feds, and the ice has to be about 1/4" thick before we get to go home (and only then if much more is expected). Businesses in our community also do not send folks home because bad weather is on it’s way or nearly there, so our local federal practice is in line with community practice and I’m not criticizing it.
However, a co-worker who has been on detail to both the DC area and Baltimore agrees those offices will close well before we would have back here in the heartland.
Whistle still not here…UPS says on time for delivery today, but tracking also shows that it didn’t arrive at the local UPS hub until 4:20 p.m. today…I don’t believe them.
To add injury to insult, my wife has had to run off for the evening to wait for the vet because our horse cut her leg right at the hoof which is supposedly bad and needs stitches, so it would have been the perfect night to try out a new whistle.
I suspect it’s mostly to do with our complete inability to deal with winter storms. I remember several years ago when there was a dusting – literally, less than half an inch of snow. It took me 1.5 hours to get the 11 miles from work to home, and that only because I took a circuitous route mostly through residential streets. A co-worker took three hours to go 6 miles. The next morning I passed probably 100 abandoned cars.
The Feds were open here yesterday when the rest of the area was virtually shut down.
Ah, that makes sense. I thought you all received snow and ice similar to our weather here in Missouri. I know your summers aren’t any worse than ours. Maybe I need to eventually relocate to Baltimore…better winters and I really, really like seafood. Plus, I like J. Patrick’s sessions.
I was in Seattle for job interviews quite a few years back, and it snowed about 1/4"…and the entire city shut down. I drove in for 2 interviews from my sister and laws house in Redmond, and the city was deserted. Neither company bothered to call me until the next day, because they assumed I’d know everything would close down with such terrible weather.
As a Fed in another eastern city, I agree that GSA made the correct decision to close early. That said, the announcement needed a good editor. In this case, selection of the word “pending” brought a lot of amusement to many Feds around the country.
It’s interesting that the ability to operate in bad weather is mostly a function of planning and investment by communities. My assumption is that communities from metro DC south have decided not to invest millions for plows, trucks, sanders etc. that may be used only once or twice a year. The trade off is widespread inclement weather closures and a little bit of teasing.
Maryland is pretty hot and humid in the summertime. Folks from Arizona and other “dry” states routinely find Maryland summers miserable, even though the temperature rarely gets past 100 degrees F. Winters are humid too, so that cold wind really cuts through you, even though the temperature may only be around 30 degrees F. In Western Maryland, where I was raised, it was unusual to see snow before February or after mid March. I think we had snow on Christmas maybe one time in the 30 years I lived there.
I’ve been in Missouri in the summertime - It does get pretty hot and humid there - I’d have to say that the weather is a bit more moderate in Maryland. I prefer the northeast, though - you get summer for about 2-3 weeks in July - August and then it cools back down again.
If you like seafood, especially crab, you really can’t do better than Maryland’s Eastern shore and in and around Baltimore. That’s one thing I do miss about living in Vermont.
There! I think that I’ve wandered far enough from the topic to get a stern spanking from The Undisputedtm
. This seems like the sort of thing one might encounter in a novel about some struggling nation being taken over by a madman or something like that. Just a quiet little coup. I hope someone told Homeland Security about this 