Blizzard Bizzare
With snow in the near term forecast again, I am reminded of two different stories that made the news during the past blizzard, where two feet of snow was dumped on Boston. (Living north of the Massachusetts border, we got around a foot of the fluffy white stuff.)
The first was people complaining that some of the local gas stations has run out of fuel. The snow packed (barely filling the pot-holes) roads and heavy congestion due to a lack of clearing of the snow from the roads had stymied many a delivery driver. Besides these reasons, the station owners also blamed local residents who had foresight to fill up before the blizzard, because not enough time was allowed to replenish supplies. Cry me a river and plan ahead.
The other interesting story was that of the Boston schools being open on the Thursday after the blizzard (on Sunday morning). They had been closed the first three days of the week and decided to open on Thursday, which turned out to be a mistake since six more inches had been predicted and was falling. So the superintendent got on the radio and announced that all students who were not in school that day would be marked “constructively present”. (Apparently the terms means something to the affect of: we know we said to be here, but we really don’t care if you’re not.) Parents were advised to use their own judgment on whether or not to send their children to class.