Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Oh, And It's Not The Size of Your Snow That Counts

It's how poorly you handle it.

Lately, a couple of my friends have pointed out though email and via Facebook just how much worse the snow is in their part of the world. Why, even Microsoft's Fargo campus is making fun of how Redmond - home to Microsoft's headquarters - is unable to deal with the weather.

I get it. Yes, it's 4 below in Fargo.

But it's Fargo.

And yes, there were 27 inches of snow in Canada. But it's Canada. Canadians are born wearing a tuke and bearing a snow shovel (which explains the popularity of c-sections).

But, because snow like this is so rare here in Seattle, we're just not ready to handle it. We don't have enough plows, nor do most of us have the right shoes or tires or chains to put on said tires. Seattle's about as prepared to handle this much snow as Tennessee is prepared to handle deluges of coal sludge.

Worse, because we're a bunch of wild-eyed, Metrognomical hippies here in Seattle, we don't salt the road, we sand it. Don't you see?? Salting it would be bad! For nature! Besides, we don't know if Seattle will get enough RAIN in the near future to dissolve all of that dreadfully unnatural... salt.

From a week of salting.

In Seattle.

Personally, if it only snows like this for a few days once a millennium, I say SALT THIS CITY! I want the Space Needle ringed like a Margarita glass. I want Mark Kurlansky to write a book about us. I want slugs to run in fear.

The best part of it all? Scientists are now saying that sanding is worse than salting.
"Sand — one of Seattle's main weapons against icy streets — is more likely to harm aquatic life than the salt the city refuses to use out of concern for its environmental effects."
Now you tell us.

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