Any chance the 2 hour delay will change by 5am?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PGCPS will be closed tomorrow so that could give MCPS some cover if they did decide to close. But I don't think they will close.

It’s not a matter of needing cover. It’s about the safety of children who walk. Y’all let yourself get dragged by the side plot. I really hope no one is killed or seriously injured today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have lived in DMV since 1990 and what made this storm unusual was the long period of sleet after the snow and then the long period of very cold temperatures that followed. We did clear our side walks but DH first broke a shovel and used an axe. That has never been required before.

+1

I grew up in the DMV and also lived in snowy places like Pittsburgh and WVA. I don’t ever recall before seeing people have to use hammers and axes to chop through ice just to clear sidewalks and free vehicles.

We struggle with normal snow, but this wasn’t normal snow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PGCPS will be closed tomorrow so that could give MCPS some cover if they did decide to close. But I don't think they will close.

It’s not a matter of needing cover. It’s about the safety of children who walk. Y’all let yourself get dragged by the side plot. I really hope no one is killed or seriously injured today.

If it's not safe to walk on ice today, then it won't be safe all week. You really think this storm warrents two weeks of no school? Just keep your kids home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PGCPS will be closed tomorrow so that could give MCPS some cover if they did decide to close. But I don't think they will close.

It’s not a matter of needing cover. It’s about the safety of children who walk. Y’all let yourself get dragged by the side plot. I really hope no one is killed or seriously injured today.

So, are you keeping tour kids home then?

[Anonymous]

I believe the delay just buys some daylight, which is critical. It's still dark at 6:30/7am when the earliest bus pickups begin. Shifting to 8:30/9am for those students makes a huge difference in safety.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I believe the delay just buys some daylight, which is critical. It's still dark at 6:30/7am when the earliest bus pickups begin. Shifting to 8:30/9am for those students makes a huge difference in safety.

It's not pitch black even at 6:30.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I believe the delay just buys some daylight, which is critical. It's still dark at 6:30/7am when the earliest bus pickups begin. Shifting to 8:30/9am for those students makes a huge difference in safety.

The EV buses won’t run in frigid temps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I believe the delay just buys some daylight, which is critical. It's still dark at 6:30/7am when the earliest bus pickups begin. Shifting to 8:30/9am for those students makes a huge difference in safety.

The EV buses won’t run in frigid temps.

That's an exaggeration. It isn't that cold, either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I believe the delay just buys some daylight, which is critical. It's still dark at 6:30/7am when the earliest bus pickups begin. Shifting to 8:30/9am for those students makes a huge difference in safety.

The EV buses won’t run in frigid temps.

That's an exaggeration. It isn't that cold, either.

It’s not — I had to take my dogs out this morning and thought it was downright balmy compared to the last few days

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I believe the delay just buys some daylight, which is critical. It's still dark at 6:30/7am when the earliest bus pickups begin. Shifting to 8:30/9am for those students makes a huge difference in safety.

The EV buses won’t run in frigid temps.

That's an exaggeration. It isn't that cold, either.

Correct on both accounts

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have lived in DMV since 1990 and what made this storm unusual was the long period of sleet after the snow and then the long period of very cold temperatures that followed. We did clear our side walks but DH first broke a shovel and used an axe. That has never been required before.

+1

I grew up in the DMV and also lived in snowy places like Pittsburgh and WVA. I don’t ever recall before seeing people have to use hammers and axes to chop through ice just to clear sidewalks and free vehicles.

We struggle with normal snow, but this wasn’t normal snow.

It sounds like you were more responsible in previous years and cleared the snow earlier. Anyone with sidewalks has probably learned the lesson about shoveling before people pack it down. If you don't, then you end up with an even more dense layer of snow and ice than this storm.

Places like MCPS and the county, who often wait too long to clear snow, end up having to use metal tools or motorized plows to clean ice all the ice.

It's like you forget each storm after it happens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have lived in DMV since 1990 and what made this storm unusual was the long period of sleet after the snow and then the long period of very cold temperatures that followed. We did clear our side walks but DH first broke a shovel and used an axe. That has never been required before.

+1

I grew up in the DMV and also lived in snowy places like Pittsburgh and WVA. I don’t ever recall before seeing people have to use hammers and axes to chop through ice just to clear sidewalks and free vehicles.

We struggle with normal snow, but this wasn’t normal snow.

It sounds like you were more responsible in previous years and cleared the snow earlier. Anyone with sidewalks has probably learned the lesson about shoveling before people pack it down. If you don't, then you end up with an even more dense layer of snow and ice than this storm.

Places like MCPS and the county, who often wait too long to clear snow, end up having to use metal tools or motorized plows to clean ice all the ice.

It's like you forget each storm after it happens.

NP. My dh went out and worked on clearing snow as often as he could, both during and after the storm, but he couldn’t keep up. I’m recovering from surgery and couldn’t help. He spent literally hours every day shoveling or chipping. The plows undid his hard work at the base of our driveway more than once. Eventually, we paid people with the right tools to get down to clear pavement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't visit the private school board typically but there's a funny thread there about how "private schools should make their own decisions about closures" inspired by their privates' decision to open being pegged to MCPS.

Parents had enough last week, and some privates decided to make their own decision and open Monday.

No wonder we have 50% of voters in the country voting the way they do when parents have enough of their kids being at home for just one week. Every parent wants their kids to have an education. It was an unprecedented storm. Calm down.

I don't think you know what "unprecedented" means. It was a moderate winter storm. Elsewhere in the country it would have closed schools for a day or two, certainly not a week.

No one who has lived here in the past 20 years has seen such a storm. Maybe you are new. No one was ready clearly from what we see of the post storm cleanup efforts.

I’ve lived here 45 years. I’ve seen storms like this. In 1994/95 we had multiple ice storms. Once was all sleet—something like 7 inches of it. It was like this and we closed for a week. In the same season, we had another ice storm that was all ice, and we also closed a week. It was a bad year. We’ve had many blizzards and mix storms. The big thing I’ve never seen with this was wasn’t about the storm, but the response. The crews all didn’t work during this storm and all stopped working right after. They didn’t make any effort to further clear roads after a day.

MCPS didn't work with any urgency, although that's not unique to this storm. It has gotten substantially worse under Taylor, though.

I think the county did fairly well, at least upcounty. We saw multiple plows on Sunday, and we were fully plowed out by early Monday morning. It was relatively easy to get around Monday at noon, even on some smaller road like Clarksburg Rd, which I had expected to be rough.

I think there are some unrealistic expectations. Immediately following a storm, you just want to make roads passable to as many people as you can. Clearing just a single lane on a multi lane road is fine. SFH neighborhoods roads that aren't through streets are naturally going to be lower priority the arteries. You initially have people working a lot of overtime, but after the first 24-36 hours, you're going to need to start letting up. And you'll start doing more neighborhood roads before you get the other lanes of the medium-sized roads.

That mostly tracks with what I saw. For the county, at least.

Separately, I can't tell you why MCPS didn't start clearing schools after the roads were clear to the schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have lived in DMV since 1990 and what made this storm unusual was the long period of sleet after the snow and then the long period of very cold temperatures that followed. We did clear our side walks but DH first broke a shovel and used an axe. That has never been required before.

+1

I grew up in the DMV and also lived in snowy places like Pittsburgh and WVA. I don’t ever recall before seeing people have to use hammers and axes to chop through ice just to clear sidewalks and free vehicles.

We struggle with normal snow, but this wasn’t normal snow.

It sounds like you were more responsible in previous years and cleared the snow earlier. Anyone with sidewalks has probably learned the lesson about shoveling before people pack it down. If you don't, then you end up with an even more dense layer of snow and ice than this storm.

Places like MCPS and the county, who often wait too long to clear snow, end up having to use metal tools or motorized plows to clean ice all the ice.

It's like you forget each storm after it happens.

NP. My dh went out and worked on clearing snow as often as he could, both during and after the storm, but he couldn’t keep up. I’m recovering from surgery and couldn’t help. He spent literally hours every day shoveling or chipping. The plows undid his hard work at the base of our driveway more than once. Eventually, we paid people with the right tools to get down to clear pavement.

Your story isn't unique. It wasn't that bad, but it did require a lot of time. It sounds like you're older or in poor health and struggle with physical labor. Or maybe just lazy.

How do you think people got to work on Tuesday?

[Anonymous]

Sometimes i forget this is a forum full of women and i need to remember that they are physically and mentally too weak to perform labor. Its not their fault that basic biology works against them