Snow Way, PC

I’d have to say we got off pretty easy around here, especially after all the dire predictions in regard to our recent blizzard; the one they called Nemo.

Nemo….

What kind of name is that for a blizzard?

I mean, if we have to name a blizzard—and I’m not sure if we do—it should have a better name than that.

Maybe “Bob”.

Blizzard Bob has kind of a nice ring to it…don’t you think?

Some news outlets were predicting up to 30 inches of the white stuff, presumably snow, depending on where you lived.

And a lot of places got just that.

In our little zip code, they say we were rewarded with about 18 inches.  I heard 23 inches on one news source, but I think that report came from a guy buried in a snow drift outside one of our fine North Main Street establishments.

Personally, I couldn’t measure more than 8-10 inches in my back yard, but I’ve been having some trouble with my old ruler lately, so I wouldn’t go by that.

But no matter how many inches you had in front of your house or apartment, one thing I have to admit is that the roads in my town, after our clown friend Nemo finally wound down, were in perfect condition.

Perfect condition for cross country skiing, snowmobiling, tobogganing, ice-skating…all your basic winter sports activities.

Gotta love a town that puts recreation in front of mobilization.

Maybe we should put in for the next Olympics.

Putnam Avenue would be perfect for the downhill.

William Street, the giant slalom.

The intersection of King and North Regent streets would be perfect for the speed skating oval.

What’s up, PC?

Snow way, this happens…not in PC.

Maybe White Plains or Harrison, but not PC.

Who dropped the big bad Nemo ball, this time around?

This is not my PC…not the town, who usually mans the streets like Patton’s Third Army at the first hint of snow.  The PC I brag about to all my elitist friends, from surrounding snob towns, who routinely find themselves waiting weeks for their DPW to remove debris from their streets after a big storm of any sort.

I really am befuddled. I mean there were trucks and plows going up and down my street, per usual, from about noon or so Friday, well into the evening.

So I certainly can’t fault the DPW workers who were out there working their tails off in the cold and wet, all day long. They always do a great job, long into the night until the last flake has been put on notice. Which is why it was so surprising, this time, to see that as the storm picked up, the trucks seemed to disappear.

The usual comforting sound I’ve come to expect on stormy nights of large trucks lumbering down the road—plows scraping, salt and sand spreaders ching-chinging—was noticeably absent.

By the next morning it looked as if there was well more than half a foot of fluffy new snow in the middle of the road. That is until folks dug out their driveways and ran their cars over it, which then turned it into a skating rink, where even walking was tricky for more than 24 hours, and was still a slushy mess as of Monday morning, in many places.

It was the first time I could ever remember the sidewalks and driveways being cleaner than the streets.

I don’t know…I don’t want to go all “grassy knoll” here, but when I hear statements that the storm was “opportune” in that it “exposed the need  to update equipment and snow-fighting techniques. Lessons learned in the storm will be used in the village's budget process” it makes me raise an eyebrow, preferably my own.

It’s not like the biggest election in PC history is just around the corner or anything is it?

I mean snow way this was about politics or potential fodder for election rhetoric.

And even if by some stretch of a wild imagination, it was, I have no idea who would have anything to gain by it…just who has to lose by it….

Us.

 So I doubt it will come up.

As storms go, this one was fairly significant, so who knows…maybe this time it was the best we could do, given the conditions and the circumstances. 

But, still, we’ve had worse, and we’ve done better.

What I do know—and expect—is the next big snow—maybe they’ll call it Sneezy—PC will be back on top of its game, clearing our streets in record time.

Who needs the Olympics.

I also expect that most of it will be plowed onto the end of my driveway.

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