What do we think will happen on Monday?

[Anonymous]

To be fair it was not physically possible for many residents to remove the ice from their sidewalks/driveways after this storm. Hard to blame anyone who is elderly or physically limited for not shoveling as it was probably not possible for them.
I personally shoveled out 3 of my elderly neighbors and I spent the next 3 days recovering. It was incredibly hard work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That email just caused more confusion. We are trying to reppen but we can’t stay closed forever but loan your neighbor a metal shovel to dig out the bus stop or you’re not going back to school but maybe we can make it work if you carpool.

lol! Genius!

[Anonymous]

What do I think will happen Monday?
Best case:
Traffic jams, impatient parents and lots of people late for work.

[Anonymous]

School will be closed

Pedestrians walking on main roads in Fairfax and Oakton and Vienna

It’s incredibly dangerous for walkers

I’m def not a snowflake parent — but it’s very hard for both drivers and pedestrians especially at intersections where a digger hasn’t removed the 6 ft high ice piles

[Anonymous]

Michelle Reid should take a shower and start clearing up ice. At least we’ll get something for paying her $400k/year :D

[Anonymous]

Michelle Reid should take a shovel and start clearing up ice. At least we’ll get something for paying her $400k/year

[Anonymous]

I don’t see how school will be open on Monday. School has closed for a lot better conditions. The ice hasn’t melted at all and side roads are a mess.

Our two lane street has one lane. Sidewalks haven’t been shoveled at all. I can drive my kids to school so our family would be ok but no way my kids could safely walk .7 miles to stand on a pile of ice to safely wait for the bus in 10 degrees.

[Anonymous]

What if the schools sent out an e-mail or text to parents asking for volunteers to help shovel bus stops and sidewalks on Saturday or Sunday between 10-3? School could provide the staging point and give metal shovels and directions. Free lunch and coffee. Some of us live in condos, etc. with covered parking and want to help but not sure where to begin and don’t have the equipment.

[Anonymous]

Blake Road is down to one lane open, there is a mountain of ice blocking the lane heading to the school. How are buses and cars going to turn off of Columbia Pike when they are blocked by cars coming out of the neighborhood. It'll be another week.

[Anonymous]

That will work is if they offer 2x service hours. The teenagers will jump at that opportunity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get neighborhood streets - I think even the bus stops in those are fine, they’re residential 25 mph roads - but it’s the sidewalks along major roadways, buried under 2 feet of ice chunks, that are not in anyone’s neighborhood or property or HOA or whatever, along roads with 45 mph speed limits and 1.75 lanes, that are the problem for the walkers. And the special ed buses.

It's the same in any of the jurisdictions that have already opened this week.

It's not as if some people didn't get the cement like snow and have amazing and business owners who cleared everything.

Nobody else opened this week except DCPS which has multiple public transportation options that the Virginia suburbs do not. Arlington, Montgomery, Loudoun did not open.

Falls church opened.

They’re small

I know they’re small. But PP said no neighboring schools opened and that’s not true.

Ok pardon me- the absolute smallest jurisdiction in this area managed to open. NONE of the comparably sized districts with similar problems managing this amount of snow across a vast district with hundreds of schools and 80-150,000 students did though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That will work is if they offer 2x service hours. The teenagers will jump at that opportunity.

This is a good idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What if the schools sent out an e-mail or text to parents asking for volunteers to help shovel bus stops and sidewalks on Saturday or Sunday between 10-3? School could provide the staging point and give metal shovels and directions. Free lunch and coffee. Some of us live in condos, etc. with covered parking and want to help but not sure where to begin and don’t have the equipment.

This is a great idea and I’m NOT opposed to it, but thinking like the school system: So here is the thing that always trips up huge bureaucracies from helping flexibly like this. Is this school sponsored? If FCPS is sponsoring it, does it need written parent permission slips? What if someone gets hurt while cleaning up? Where are the shovels coming from? What about lunch and coffee- is the PTA providing it? Which employee is getting paid to manage this?

I don’t have the answers, but I don’t think the schools can just do this without more parameters. You can thank litigation for this.

[Anonymous]

Capital weather gang said the snowpack is not melting until March. Yesterday they said this. Marginal melting during the day. Refreeze at night. This is it.

Do you think school will be closed until March?

[Anonymous]

When is this "snowcrete" nonsense going to finally MELT?

Wouldn't surprise us if some of it is still hanging around in MARCH.

The prolonged cold has largely prevented the frozen conglomeration that fell on Sunday from melting, and there’s no sign of a meaningful thaw or rainstorm to erode it anytime soon.

As temperatures moderate next week, some limited melting may occur along the surface of the snowpack — especially on sunnier afternoons. But the concrete-like slabs of snow and ice will refreeze each night when lows fall back into the teens and 20s.

The amount of frozen precipitation that fell Sunday contained water equivalent to roughly a 20-inch snowstorm, but in a far more compacted form. What remains may only be 4 to 6 inches thick, yet it is so dense that it will require a significant amount of heat energy to melt. Unless the region experiences a rapid warmup and/or a soaking rainstorm, much of it could linger well into February.

And those towering piles in parking lots? Some of them may still be around in March.