The blizzard of Ought-six

Having talked about politics and religion, I will now talk about the subject that people are supposed to talk about to avoid talking about politics and religion. For the benefit and entertainment of those of my thousands of readers who live in such tropical climes as Australia, South America, Africa, and India, I will now indulge in a whiney diatribe about the weather in Colorado during the last three weeks. As such, it will be rather short on snide and insulting social criticism. Sorry, guys.

It all started—and, by rights, should have ended—with the event which even those in tropical climes may have heard about on the news: the blizzard which was usually referred to as the “holiday blizzard” because it occurred right at the beginning of the “holiday season,” thus affecting transportation and commerce even in far-flung lands. The area of specific concern to me is the north-Denver-Boulder area of Colorado, but it affected most of the state. It started early on Wed 20 Dec and continued until about noon Thurs 21. Well, you might say, a day and a half of snow doesn’t sound all that bad, particularly for Colorado; and ordinarily it might not be. But, by definition of a blizzard, this included, in addition to over 2 feet of snow, high winds which drifted it all over the place. And it closed down Denver International Airport (DIA), due to zero visibility and impassable runways, at precisely the time when thousands of travelers were trying to fly home for Christmas, which meant that they were stuck at DIA for several days. Hundreds were sleeping on the floors of the terminal. Emergency services had to supply food for all these people. As someone obsessed with shit, I can’t imagine what the impact on the sanitation system must have been. DIA eventually began re-opening air traffic some time Friday, but very slowly, and stranded fliers were still sleeping there Friday night. All roads were closed, not only during the blizzard but for some time afterwards. Colorado Dept. of Transportation (CDOT), which is used to dealing with snow, had plows, of course, but not nearly enough for something like this, and plowing didn’t do much good anyway because the high winds would just drift the snow back onto the roads minutes after the plows went through. Hundreds of vehicles were stuck and stranded on the Interstates, and the passengers, most of whom spent Wednesday night in their vehicles, had to be rescued by copter because emergency vehicles couldn’t get through. As a result of the roads not being plowed, the vehicles which did manage to get through simply packed two feet of snow down into several inches of ice, making the job more difficult for the plows when they finally got there. Plowing of residential side streets was a lost cause, and most of them simply had ruts made in the snow by 4-wheelers with high carriage. Digging cars out from their curbside parking spaces, and digging out driveways, were nightmares that people simply accepted with more or less stoicism. Actually, the event, like many less-than-catastrophic setbacks such as electrical blackouts, brought out a heartwarming camaraderie in people, and on the state highway in front of my home, roaming groups of citizens went up and down the street with shovels, helping to dig or push people out. People who had never before been outside their cars for any longer than it took to get back and forth between them and destination buildings, were suddenly seen walking through this shit for several blocks, sometimes as much as a mile, to the store—and talking to each other en route. In spite of all the inconvenience, this was one of the bright sides.

So okay, Colorado has seen blizzards before, so what’s the big deal, aside from the impact on DIA? The big deal is that it didn’t stop there. Usually after a blizzard, there’s a period of warming that gets rid of most of the snow, and eventually the ice. But this was followed about a week later, while most of the snow and ice was still there, by another snow on top of it; and then about a week after that, a third snow on top of the other two. The second one (I think), even after it had left Denver, continued to blast the eastern and southeastern plains, and the TV news (in one of its rare moments of showing something newsworthy) showed hay being dropped from copters to cattle stranded in the midst of all this; many cattle have been lost, in an area with a strongly cattle-based economy. Even when the snow wasn’t falling, it was being drifted by high winds, creating ground blizzards which reduced road visibility to zero, causing more road closures and some catastrophic multi-vehicle pile-ups and again stranding cars on remote stretches of the Interstates. I’ve almost lost track of the number of storms—I think it’s three now (they often occur on or around weekends)—and a fourth is forecasted on its way. Enough already! Many parking lots as well as streets will not see all the ice gone for weeks, and I’m forced to walk around with a walking-stick in mincing little old-man steps—for weeks. I am not happy. (Well, to be honest, this is just one more reason for my more or less constitutional grumpiness.) One of my friends, who grew up in Minnesota, says she loves all this because it reminds her of her childhood. Different strokes for different folks.

As a sign of my resourcefulness at finding things to complain about, I actually complained to someone that this weather sort of took the wind out of my standard moan about global warming, and he said no, not necessarily, because global warming can disrupt climate patterns in any number of ways, even including this. What a comfort (literally a cold comfort) to know that I’m right in being pessimistic. (You all know the definition of an optimist as one who thinks this is the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist as one who’s afraid the optimist is right.) One of my favorite lines in cinema is from Jurassic Park. The mathematician (played by Jeff Goldblum) predicts, on the basis of catastrophe theory, that something will go seriously wrong on the island, and of course nobody believes him, so when the shit is finally hitting the fan and everybody’s life is in danger, Goldblum observes wryly, “I hate it when I’m right.” Al Gore may be quoting that line in a few decades. Prophets really don’t like being in the position of having to say, “I told you so.”