Snow joke as Washington goes stir crazy
Sarah Smith in Washington writes how the jokes are getting worn out as Washington remains stranded by record snowfall.
WASHINGTON DC, USA: Feels like the whole of Washington DC is stuck indoors.
The federal government is officially closed and so that accounts for a large part of the working population of DC.
And many more people can’t get into work. Myself included.
The Channel 4 News producer bravely trekked in yesterday but it took him two hours each way to walk through the snow. And most people have chosen not to put themselves through that unless they really have to.
The result is a city that is going stir crazy. Many people have not been outside since Friday or Saturday and are going a little crazy trying to entertain themselves.
Everyone seems to have posted photos of the snow on Facebook, and people are competing online to come up with best name for the storm.
Snow-ma-geddon President Obama called it on Saturday.
So since the second dump of snow yesterday its become Snowmageddon Two Point 0. Or Snowmageddon the sequel. But it has also been dubbed “Snopocalypse” “Snowverkill” “SnOMG 11” and my personal favourite, “SnowtoriousBIG”.
But some killjoys are already saying that we can’t give fun names to a weather event that is endangering lives and costing taxpayers many millions of dollars every day the federal government is shut down.
This is Washington so everything gets political instantly.
There are plenty of people out there insisting this proves that global warming doesn’t exist. And others who say the worst storm since 1898 is evidence of climate chaos and the need to do something about it.
After Hurricane Katrina some on the religious right in America said the storm was divine retribution for New Orleans’s liberal and gay friendly attitudes.
Surely it won’t be long before someone says Washington has been hit with all this snow to punish lawmakers for stacking up a deficit that’s higher then the snowdrifts on the pavements.
As a child growing up in Scotland I saw plenty snow, and although my school was occasionally closed due to big snowfalls, we were never completely snowed in.
I always used to imagine that phrase meant that you literally could not open the doors because of all the snow piled up outside, rather than just unable to get the get the car out of the garage or find it under the piles of white stuff.
Today it actually happened. I could not get the back door open because there was too much snow piled against it.
Luckily an enterprising young man rang the bell and offered to clear the front steps and our bit of the sidewalk for $30.
After he’d done that we could get round to the back and dig ourselves out from the outside.
Just in time to see someone actually skiing past.
That’s one way to entertain yourself while the snow lasts, but if you do have skis shouldn’t you be using them to get to work?