February 12

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Warning you -- another post you'd probably rather not read..................


Creepy.  Like something out of Alien.  I sort of expected it to reach over, break the window, reach through, wind itself around my neck and suck me dry...........

And now for some real-life aggravation.  The plows came around, and totally blocked our driveway.

Look at the size of this chunk of snow/ice!  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  That's my foot, not Barbie's................

You know how fast they have to be going (and how tall the plow blade has to be!) to throw snow over our 3-4' of snow in the lawn extension..................

I'm afraid I lost it and yelled at the plow driver.  When I went out to take pics before we shoveled, I saw him at the other end of the block across the street, heading our way around that block.  I crossed the street and waited for him.  I stood in front of him to make him stop.  I began by asking him what, exactly, he thought I was going to do with all that snow/ice he dumped in my driveway, and, predictably, the response I got was basically "I'm just doing what I'm told."  He politely let me rant at him for a while, and I tried really hard to remember it wasn't his idea to be doing that to me.............

That was a really big truck/plow -- The top of the hood was way higher than my head.  My better half said later I'd "gone all Tiananmen Square".................



It took all three of us 20-30 minutes to break up and move the snow/ice that had been deposited on our property by the plow.

I sent email to the mayor and city council, including the three pics above, and told them very strongly that it is TIME TO STOP PLOWING RESIDENTIAL STREETS, as there is NO PLACE TO PUT THE SNOW.  (Unless they are going to put it in trucks and take it away!)

I got responses from three council people -- the one who is running for mayor, the one from our ward who is not a complete )#($&^, and one of the women, who was very patient about listening to me rant.  They passed my comments along to staff, who responded with a very disappointing paragraph full of questionable (at best!) statements.

Perhaps some of those statements make sense in normal years, when the lawn extensions have 4-6" inches of snow on them before the plows go by.  Continuing to plow when the amount of snow on the extension is higher than 2' is **NOT** going to make property-owners' lives better.

It is disappointing when the results of actions are not thought through, and when current conditions are not taken into consideration.  The fact that plowing may often be a net gain is no reason to assume it will be a net gain in all circumstances.  We are experiencing unprecedented accumulation.  Extreme circumstances.  Ordinary "standard policy" doesn't make necessarily make sense in extreme circumstances......................

Sigh.

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