Originally posted by LePaul
4 inches closes schools?
Well....with this day and age of lawyers suing anyone and anything, I suppose that sounds right. Back when I was going to school, it had to be one helluva storm to force a snow day. These days, any hit of sleet,freezing rain or, gasp, flurries will do it. And of course the kids love it...up until they realize they wont be out of school until close to July!
a lot of it has to do with the area.
when I lived in the mid-west it took quite a bit to close the schools and gov't offices.
here in Portland everything shuts down if just a couple inches hits the valley floor. it's nothing to do with lawyers or insurance. we just don't get snow with enough regularity to make it worth the gov't owning or maintaining enough snow removal equipment to get the roads drivable very quickly.
plus most Portlanders can't drive worth a damn in the snow. I get around fine in the snow but stay off the roads to avoid being a target.
the last major snow storm (a couple years back, maybe 6 inches, people were acting like it was a blizzard) a news crew set up a camera at an intersection down the street.
new neighborhood, 500k+ houses, all new winding street carved up the side of the hill. it was fluff'n beautiful. one soccer mom after another in her brand new SUV comes sliding down this hill to slam into the pile of cars already there.
no chains, no studs, no snow tires "it was in 4WD. I don't know what went wrong with this thing."
I'm not talking a couple cars. the 'soccer mom slalom' went on for hours, until the city could get a crew there to put up barricades and a sign to warn that the steep hill that is covered in ice and snow should be avoided by those without proper traction devices.
