I just came from HamdenRice's excellent diary and feel a need to show you guys just how bad this snow storm, specifically the bad handling of plowing operations, was for us. I don't normally take pictures, but I was snapping away while walking around in my neighborhood these last few days.
I was surprised on day one when snow plows were seemingly absent from the roads. A few inches on the ground already and I saw with my own eyes 3 plows idling for an hour and a half. I never saw a plow come down my block. I was disturbed on day two when I saw a snow plow had hit a car after getting stuck and numerous other cars stranded or abandoned in intersections. I was SHOCKED yesterday when streets were still not plowed and yet more drivers stranded.
I have some pics below of what I saw, just in about a mile radius of my house. I didn't take pictures of everything I saw, sometimes my hands were too damn cold, but I got quite a few.
They came out kind of large in the diary, but still viewable I hope.
I don't have pics from day one (I do have a video, but we didn't upload it yet), but I got some from day two and day three, which was yesterday.
DAY TWO
Intersection near my house. This plow got stuck, maybe because the other cars were stuck, and slammed into the black car on the corner, maybe trying to get unstuck, hard enough to push it onto the sidewalk.
The side view of the black car that got creamed.
Another shot of this intersection.
One more.
Two cars stuck on the intersecting block to the right.
One block away, another intersection with stuck cars. The black car was abandoned there at some point by it's owner. Everyone else there trying to get unstuck was bitching about it. It's not shown in the picture, but there was a bus stuck there to the right that tried so hard to get out of the snow the snow around the tires was filthy and there were spring looking things and wires hanging near the back wheels.
One more from this intersection.
Picture from the overpass. Notice how the highway is pretty clear? That tells me the snow was more manageable than the City would have us believe.
DAY THREE
These were taken at night so the quality is significantly worse.
Car overheating trying to get unstuck. You can see the exhaust in the picture. It smelled worse.
Further down you can see this car is perpendicular to the sidewalk. We don't park like that here! Parallel parking is impossible with this much snow still in the streets.
Someone blocked this avenue off, with good reason as some of the next pictures show. This is a two direction, one lane each avenue that gets a decent amount of traffic, but it's impossible to pass in the middle.
Whoever drove this bus was lucky. They managed to pull over, albeit facing the wrong side of the steeet, and park before it was impossible.
The same blocked off street. You can see the big roll left by a plow, before they gave the block up for lost. There is no excuse for why this block didn't get an attempted plow until two feet were already on the ground.
Another shot showing the depth of snow on this block.
While one side of the street was roped off, the other end wasn't and these guys got stuck. And no matter how much I waved no to some other drivers on the corner, they drove down there anyway.
These three show a front end loader rescuing an electric company truck stuck up the block from me by taking the snow off the side street and dumping it on my corner. The driver was upset because he didn't smile for the pictures :) The bright light in the third pic is the electric co vehicle.