Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Snowmageddon in Birmingham

It's Snowmageddon in Birmingham
Snow continues to fall and the temperature on the back deck is 18 degrees and falling. Not expected to get above freezing until Thursday.
As a transplanted Wolverine who grew up in Ohio I have always been a bit amused at the southern reaction to the first snowflake of impending winter precipitation. Rarely do we see the sorts of real blizzards that I grew up with, although the mere rumor of snow is worth quadruple sales of bread and milk to local grocers. (This is not, of course, restricted to the south. In 1979, if I recall correctly, I watched two big guys get into a fist fight over the last gallon of milk in a Kroger store on Dublin-Granville Road in Columbus OH. While they were duking it out, a little rabbity guy snuck in and grabbed the milk. A cop "arrested" them both, but then had to let them go, much the worse for wear, because there was no way to transport them downtown.)
Now however we have an unexpected winter weather emergency here in Birmingham and the town is shut down with tens of thousands stuck on roads blocked by accidents. Rosey left her work two hours ago with a friend and I still haven't seen her from what is normally a twenty-five minute drive. I left to go to the post office and had to turn around at the end of our street because there are two cars in the ditch where it comes out on a county road. In turning around, I barely made it back up the driveway with my bald tires (after the third try).
Just got a call from Hannah who informs me that after an hour she just now made it out of the parking lot at her work on Birmingham's south side. That only took her an hour. If I see her by dark it will be a minor miracle.
Keep all us silly southerners in your prayers. We're going to need them.

6 comments:

Da Curly Wolf said...

we call it iceapocalypse TWO, here in Houston. So far? meh..I'm singularly unimpressed

Anonymous said...

I know, let's get in the car and see how bad the roads are! Take some beers too!

Anonymous said...

I'm willing to cut our southern breathern some slack. Y'all only rarely face this sort of weather so being "armed for it" is a waste of public resources. OTOH, some individual gear that's simple/cheap/durable can be stored long term. Tire chains f'r instance. Any sort of shovel, kitty litter, road flares and some simple "survival" gear like water, energy bars, space blankets can be added to any vehicle when threatening weather looms.

But, then, how many of us "northers" do it ? >Jeff

Anonymous said...

Dang - We NEED some Global Warming!

Make me wonder why we ever downsized away from 7 liter V8s

Burn, Baby. Burn!

III

Anonymous said...

In the Colorado blizzard of 1981, I witnessed two gals duke it out over the last roll of toilet paper in the store.
So ridiculous it was funny!

Anonymous said...

Sorry, can't help now, in July let me know the tire size, I'll see if I have anything laying around. July is family reunion time.