The River Green

When the weather report mentioned another 9 inches of snow, I almost had a conniption. The streets were hardly cleared from the massive snow that we just had and now they’re talking about another nine inches?!

I think all of Pittsburgh must have been in shock. Marieke had yesterday off. For the first time ever, the County Court of Common Pleas closed. The kids had a third day off from school today.

There is currently a bit of controversy brewing about snow removal and the city’s lack of response to the first storm, let alone what little response there has been to the second storm. To add fuel to the fire, the Post Gazette posted the following on their blog:

In case you missed it, the PG posted a map of city salt routes that shows the web of city and state roads through Pittsburgh's 55 square miles.

Red indicates a state road, yellow means a primary road, blue means secondary and green means tertiary. Each Public Works division has a list of priority roads.

As for the homestead, I performed my duties, clearing off the steps and sidewalk, digging out the car and going to the grocery store. Part of going tot he store everyday was to see what the ‘outside world’ looked like, since Montclair is always so isolated.

As the above slideshow reveals, the additional snow was almost more than I could bear.

As the slideshow to the right reveals, it was almost more than the city could bear. Walking in it was really difficult on the ankles because even on the street, it was slippy. On the sidewalks that weren’t shoveled, ridges appeared, forcing your foot to slide sideways and downward on almost every step. The only clear spot I came across in terms of the sidewalk in the business area was Parkvale Savings. Their lot was clear, the entire sidewalk surrounding their building was clear and salted. Giant Eagle’s parking lot was a mess. The only part of the sidewalk along Greenfield Ave. that was cleared off was in front of Homer’s; they have a snow blower. The other side was a complete mess. The Buddhists were the only other place along Greenfield who even made an attempt at shoveling. It was a sobering experience at Giant Eagle when I saw the manager handing out vouchers for bread, the entire multi shelf trolley having been emptied. In the dairy section, it looked like they were preparing to do the same thing for milk. There were two gallons of whole left and nothing else. Three workers were standing there watching me walk past, their expressions a mix of anticipation and dread that I would begin demanding products that were not on the shelves. I considered doing just that, even though I didn’t need any, just to see what they would do, but decided against it since my striped scarf would only muffle anything I might say.

I made several videos with both the camera and my phone for posterity. This was, after all, one of the heaviest snow falls in the history of the city. Both Marieke and I had some fun with the macro setting on the camera and as soon as I get a data cord or flash card, the pics and vids can come out of my phone. The gallery to the left is of the various plants around the house that looked neato with the snow on them. This is more attention than these plants have received in three years!

There are some pics of some holly bushes down the street, but they’re not in this gallery. I will be posting those to Facebook as soon as I can spend more than fifteen minutes on the computer without trying to fix whatever else might be going wrong with my final project. Unfortunately, those of us attending internet school do not get snow days!

Labels: snow