Snoverwhelmed

Roving packs of dogs now rule Columbia Heights

Somehow, despite being trapped in my house for days, I have not found time to blog yet. Honestly, I'm not even sure what day it is most of the time. It's just another day. I no longer wonder whether the office will technically be open or not, since there is no way for me to get there until the metro runs above ground again.

This is actually an improvement.

A snowplow did come by this morning. The result was interesting. While 11th Street might technically be passable now, it is impossible to turn onto any side street, since they are all now walled off by snowbanks about 4 feet high.

Most people's cars are hermetically sealed in the wall of ice and snow. That has not stopped a handful or eternal optimists from digging out their cars every day, though so far I have not seen anyone sucessfully leave their parking spot in two days.

Where we are at this point is full-on cabin fever. If I watch another NCIS rerun I will kill myself. Or, more likely, N. will kill me. Walking the dogs must be accomplished in the slim sidewalk area where they can actually walk. And that's only going to get worse when people start throwing salt down, which hurts the dog's feet. Last week, we put ziploc bags on Sully's feet once to protect him from the salt. It was pretty hilarious actually.

Worst of all, I have not been to Home Depot in more than a week. They'll probably be out of business by the time I make it back there.

At the same time, business has obviously been good for the local watering holes. We've been to The Red Derby, er, more than I'd care to admit, mostly because it's about the only place we can get to. It has been packed every time.

So we perservere. This is officially more disastrous than the Great Marion Barry Disaster of 1996. That is, my office has been closed for more consecutive days than that event, which seems like a good yardstick. Luckily (yes, really) the Internet means that I've been able to work most of the time, unlike last time around, when everyone in the entire city was clearly bonkers after about five days of being cooped up. I am trying to remember what we did for a week with no internet.

Steamed Over Parking Spots

A good blizzard always brings out the best in city folks. Sunday, as many emerged from their snowbound homes for the first time, I saw dozens of my neighbors out and about, shoveling their walks, or their elderly neighbor's walks, and helping people dig their cars out. Everyone was cheerful an enjoying the glorious, sunny post-snow day.

It also brings out the strange. While not a unique phenomenon, in DC, the act of digging your car out of a street spot apparently grants you ownership of it until the snow melts. As quickly as cars started moving out of their snowy prisons and onto the crusty streets, the vacant spots were filled with pylons, lawn chairs, and pleading notes and candy canes. Gotta love the hippies... I'm guessing the lawn chairs were more effective.

My favorite one is below. Monday around noon, I saw this one on Webster Street NW. It cracked me up so I took a picture. If you can't see what's behind the chair in shot #1, proceed to shot #2 for a better view.

Ironing out the parking situation

On my way to work this morning, at 7:15 AM, I was pleased to see that the ironing board was, in fact, an effective way to keep people from stealing your hard-earned spot. I do have to wonder how they will press their shirts for Christmas Eve, though.

Hard pressed to find parking

Hmm... that looks a like a pretty nice dining room chair, too. It's going to be a wrinkly, standing-room-only Christmas dinner, I guess.

As hilarious as this is, it does beg the question. Clearly, someone is willing to go to great lengths to defend their parking spot, nay, their honor against any and all invaders. They have moved much of the contents of their dining room, and laundry room, to the sidewalk in order to ensure parking.

So far, I've observed the spot twice, occupied only by furniture and laundry accessories. No sign of a car, either at noon on Monday, or at 7:15 AM, two days later. In this day and age it seems that parking, even rarely needed parking, is now at least as valuable as your home furnishings.

Paradox: Garbage Trucks vs. Unplowed Alleys

Sunday, the mayor's office jubilantly announced that normal trash collection would resume Monday. I am curious to know how that worked out for everyone who had trash collection yesterday. Because in my alley, there are 18" of glorious, untracked snow. At least there were as of yesterday morning. As of this morning, it was more like 12" of glorious untracked snow, with 3" of ice melt that had refrozen into a spectacular impenetrable shell.

Today, that question has been answered by DDOT. I received this little note by way of the Ward One DC mailing list:

(Washington, D.C.) – The District Department of Transportation (DDOT) and Department of Public Works (DPW) want to remind residents that as a policy the District does not plow alleys.

“The District does not plow alleys,” said DPW Director William O. Howland, Jr. “We do not have the resources and in the majority of the alleys there is no place to push the snow. It would be too difficult and labor intensive to plow any type of alley, whether narrow or wide, in the District.”

I am having a hard time getting my head around these two seemingly diametrically opposed notions.

DC does not plow alleys.
Normal trash collection will resume Monday.

These really exist. Not in DC, though.

In my mind, I am trying to put a square peg into a round hole. I have even tried turning the square peg sideways. I am now thinking about going to the basement with the square peg, and chopping the corners off it. I am sure I can make it fit in the round hole, but it will not be pretty, and there will be a lot of damage to the square peg. And using the miter saw on small blocks of wood is very dangerous and sometimes results in the blocks of wood flying across the room. I will wear safety glasses.

Umm... anyway... where was I? Oh yes. Garbage trucks in unplowed alleys. Alleys which, actually, DC has not only not yet plowed, but has no intention of plowing.

Yesterday I complained about the fact that many side streets near where I live had apparently not yet been plowed. DC has an online snow-plow tracking tool that is actually very cool. It will show you where snow plows went interactively using a time-lapse map. It also confirms that a lot of Petworth was not plowed at all.

But here's what I don't get. In the press release reminding us that the alleys are not (and will not) be plowed, they said:

“We are receiving numerous requests from residents, higher than in years past,” said DDOT Director Gabe Klein. “Our crews are focused on clearing the District’s 1100 miles of roadway, in particular the residential and side streets. We just do not have the resources to plow alleys.”

This note was interesting for several reasons.

1. Why are residents higher than in years past? Is marijuana use on the rise in DC? Or is it the quality of weed that's improving?
   
2. So, you are basically admitting that more than two days after the snow stopped, you still haven't cleared all the roads.
   
3. DC has 1,100 miles of roadways. That's a lot, but actually less than I would have guessed. Very useful information.
   

DDOT's web site says that "The District has 330 pieces of equipment and 750 personnel available for any given storm. This includes additional contract plows, if necessary, for major weather events."

So we have 330 snow plows and 1100 miles of roadway.

That means that if we mobilized all the snow plows, and each of them plowed one mile of road every 30 minutes (which seems like a pretty conservative estimate), then every single mile of road in DC could be covered in about, oh, two hours.

Let's account for mismanagement and bad routing and double that, to four hours.

Let's account for half of the snowplows being broken down and double that, to eight hours.

I am really trying hard to think of other reasons to add more time to this estimate, but I can't come up with any. DC should be able to go over every inch of road in this city in eight hours maximum.

It is now approximately 50 hours since the last snowflake has fallen.

Can you tell me again why you are too busy to plow the alleys? Actually, never mind the alleys. Why I am still driving on 4" of hard packed snow and ice until I get to 16th Street?

DC Snow Removal Up To Usual Standards

...for the Barry Administration, anyway. Yeah, this was a record-breaking snowfall. No, I don't exepect miracles. But at the same time, there hasn't been a snowflake coming out of the sky since late Saturday night.

Nor have I seen a snowplow since sometime Saturday. Nor have I seen any evidence of salt or sand on the roads, anywhere.

So, did Adrian Fenty decide that closing the DC government applied to snow removal as well? I have to say, though, I admire his optimism. Apparently, normal trash collection is scheduled to resume today. That will be quite a neat trick, since no vehicle of any sort has traveled through my alley since before the snow. I will be very impressed if the garbage trucks can drive through 18" of snow.

I heard anecdotally that a lot of snowplows had broken down. I don't suppose that there's any connection between the 700+ speed bumps that Fenty put throughout the city, and the inability to remove snow from the sidestreets? Couldn't be. Great thinking, there. Aother brilliant Fenty move: just do whatever you want, without thinking about the consequences.

Petworth - 8 AM on Monday. Illionois Avenue and 4th Street.




11th Street in Columbia Heights - Sunday Afternoon




Adams Morgan - Sunday Morning. At first I thought this guy was an idiot for trying to turn onto Euclid Street from Columbia Road. After he got un-stuck and traffic started moving again, I realized why. 18th and Columbia Road was basically unplowed and it was obvious that most cars wouldn't be able to pass.




As of 8 AM today, everything looks pretty much the same as it did on Sunday morning. So what were the snowplows doing all day Sunday? Or did the speed bumps kill them all?

I guess we'll just wait it out like the old days.

Up here in Silver Spring, everything is perfectly clear.

Yo, Fenty, here's a bit of advice. If you are going to install thousands of speed bumps, maybe you should consider that we actually have snow here. That's why we have snowplows. Though given how few I've seen this weekend, maybe you forgot about them? So here's something for you to check out: The snow-plow compatible speed bump.

Now that I've gotten the obligatory DC snow fail criticism out of the way... pretty awesome, eh? A few highlights are below. More pictures here! Enjoy.


My day started on Saturday with the realization that I did not have a snow shovel. I did, however, have a four-wheel drive truck. And there's nothing I like more that tooling around the city in the middle of a blizzard. So I started with a trip to Home Depot to solve that shovel problem.

I wasn't sure how it was going to work out, since you'd figure there had been a run on them on Friday. Luckily, even as the DC government was not prepared for the storm, Home Depot was:




After the first of many sidewalk shovelings Saturday, N. and I ventured in to Columbia Hieghts to find some breakfast and take in the spectacle. The Heights was packed and there was a wait. We were too hungry to put up with that nonsense - and frankly, I find The Heights to be the pinnacle of mediocrity. So we walked to Ruby Tuesday's. Plenty of seating!

So typical of Cohi attitude... we'll pay more for crappy food, as long as it's not a chain. Personally, I think RT has better food than The Heights. It also comes with a lower price and less attitude. Our server was fantastic. I am slightly concerned about the presentation of the bloody mary though:




RT closed their doors for the day right after we finished, as did much of the downtown in Columbia Heights. Our post-brunch Target trip was thwarted. But we ran into a friend who was about to head downtown to catch Avatar 3D and decided to join him. It seems likely that the Metro would be a disaster (and it was from all accounts) so we drove instead. The movie didn't work out. Shockingly, it was sold out an hour in advance. How did all those people get there? Guess we weren't the only people with that idea. But we had a lot of fun tooling around the city taking pictures.

Apparently, you didn't need necessarily need four wheel drive to get around. At least, you didn't if you are a completely idiot like this guy.




It seems that that guy wasn't the only one who just couldn't give up his bike in the middle of a blizzard. Ah, Wonderland.




As usual, everyone in DC freaked out and packed the supermarkets at the first sign of snow. We tried to go to Giant to buy a couple things on Saturday afternoon -- the lines were at least 20 people long. Umm... no.

So off to my new favorite alternative, the Petworth Safeway. It was far more civilized. There was plenty of parking and the lines were minimal. We got what we needed. Though certain things were hard to come by even there...




Sharing the Road took on quite a new meaning on Sunday, as pedestrians took to the streets as the only passable place to walk. Many people were out trying to dig out their cars or just walk down the street. Huge props to my neighbors - the sidewalks were 100% clear on my street as of mid-morning on Sunday. It was not so great in many other places.




Park Road between 14th and 16th on Sunday.




There was a lot of fun stuff to see out there. Everyone was great. My neighbors were all helping each other dig out on Sunday. Our dogs regarded the snow with some suspicion at first, but soon enough were having a blast. These guys had the right idea though:




All in all, I love a good snowstorm. It's been a long time for me - I was out of town for the big one in 2003. Glad this one finally lived up to the hype.