Garcia Media Life

OK, I was wrong. We are not the new Chicago. It’s been TWO weeks since the first snow flakes ushered in our storm of the century and there are still huge mounds of snow at intersections, entire lanes of highways and major thoroughfares that remain blocked off and significant portions of hardened ice on sidewalks.

The people of the DC area may be a little heartier and grizzled than they were before, but our state and local governments have shown all the winter acumen of Dade County, Florida. I don’t want to hear Mayor Fenty bragging about how well the city handled the twin storms. You didn’t. You tried but you failed. Your only ally has been the sunshine and the few degrees above freezing God has chosen to give you for a few hours each day.

Commuting nightmares continue. Metro is still swarming with massive crowds; all the people who don’t want to waste hours of their lives sitting in their cars not moving. We don’t even want to go into trash pick-up and the latest bane of people’s existence- potholes big enough to stop speeding Toyotas in their tracks.

I don’t own a car anymore. Gave up the automotive habit when I moved to Manhattan, a city uniquely equipped to handle a walking-subway-cabbing lifestyle. DC is very different which is why I moved two blocks from work and one block from a Metro station and, coincidently, to an apartment complex where a Zip-car happens to be parked in the back everyday. My exposure to the area’s continuing snow headaches is primarily sidewalk-related. But I have co-workers still arriving late to work everyday and friends posting their commuting frustrations on Facebook on a regular basis.

Eventually, because we have seasons, someday this crap will all go away. But it is absolutely nuts that on February 19th, the good people of this region are still dealing with a snowfall that began at 10:45am on Friday, February the 5th. Mother Nature can dump tons of snow and then eventually melt it or wash it away- but she needs a little help.