I'm afraid that my impression of Balto-Wash and snow were set quite firmly in high school. (This would be in the early 80's sometime.)
There we were, at Model UN in the middle of DC: a thousand or so high school students, at dinnertime. It had been snowing during the day, and about six inches fell -- enough to slow things down slightly at home, but probably not enough to close school. A gaggle of us from my school looked at the hotel restaurant, which had lines a hundred deep, and decided to walk out to find somewhere to eat.
Washington was *deserted*. I don't mean "quiet", I mean "ghost town". We walked down the center of Pennsylvania Avenue, because it was entirely unplowed. We walked for most of a mile before we actually found an open restaurant (a Mom and Pop Greek joint on the second floor overlooking the road).
It was utterly bizarre. At home in NJ, that much snow might reduce the traffic downtown to a quarter of its normal levels, but the road would get plowed. Here in MA, I doubt six inches would have even that much effect -- the plows would have it mostly cleared by the time the snow finished falling, and lots of folks would go about their business. But as far as I could tell, it managed to totally paralyze Washington...
(no subject)
There we were, at Model UN in the middle of DC: a thousand or so high school students, at dinnertime. It had been snowing during the day, and about six inches fell -- enough to slow things down slightly at home, but probably not enough to close school. A gaggle of us from my school looked at the hotel restaurant, which had lines a hundred deep, and decided to walk out to find somewhere to eat.
Washington was *deserted*. I don't mean "quiet", I mean "ghost town". We walked down the center of Pennsylvania Avenue, because it was entirely unplowed. We walked for most of a mile before we actually found an open restaurant (a Mom and Pop Greek joint on the second floor overlooking the road).
It was utterly bizarre. At home in NJ, that much snow might reduce the traffic downtown to a quarter of its normal levels, but the road would get plowed. Here in MA, I doubt six inches would have even that much effect -- the plows would have it mostly cleared by the time the snow finished falling, and lots of folks would go about their business. But as far as I could tell, it managed to totally paralyze Washington...