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Friday, April 2, 2010

Weather or Not

I think people who live in Seattle have weather-related amnesia. Why else would they live here? There are substantial reasons, except I can't remember ....

What I've noticed, not being from here originally, is the local drivers often forget how to drive. This phenomenon occurs when there is a change in weather. Just as they figure out how to drive in the rain, the sun comes out and they have to learn how to navigate under new, and strange, conditions.

If the weather turns back to rain, we're back to square one.

Heaven help us if it ever snows. Seattle-ites have never, ever, figured that one out. It's just embarrassing. Their version of driving in the snow is upgrading their 4WD which is assumed to also mean four-wheeled-ice-braking-while-going-downhill. It's just easier to cancel everything and hope it goes away.

And, when it doesn't, they blame the Mayor.

But it turns out "plowed streets" in Seattle actually means "snow-packed," as in there's snow and ice left on major arterials by design.

"We're trying to create a hard-packed surface," said Alex Wiggins, chief of staff for the Seattle Department of Transportation. "It doesn't look like anything you'd find in
Chicago or New York."


The last big snow storm, among other things, cost the Mayor his job. But the great thing about amnesia is ... wait, what?

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