London Snow

[eldar]

Well, with apologies to Charles Stross, but here I am on the other side of the Atlantic, sniggering away.

Having lived through snowy days in London where the place did shut down (and having got stuck in my car for 4 hours on one particularly memorable occasion), and now having lived through snowy days in New York that are worse than anything I've seen in London and seen business continue pretty much as usual, it does amuse me how easily England comes to a standstill at the first sign of a snowflake. You'd think that local authorities and those responsible for responding to snow and other weather-based emergencies haven't trusted weather forecasters since October 1987.

Comments

[chained-girl.livejournal.com]

Apparently they've used 25% of their annual grit allowance. Well Harrow have, anyway. God knows what the rest of London is doing with theirs, snorting it or something, I should think.

[clarisinda.livejournal.com]

When I first moved to London I was most bemused by how an inch of snow could bring an entire city to a halt - it certain doesn't bring Edinburgh to a standstill, never mind further north.

However, at least this time, it's not one inch, but nine (measured by Gavin earlier, on a non-snowdrifed wheelie bin) which is at least twice as much as I've ever seen in London before, and secondly, while I don't know a great deal about trains, I certainly would not want to drive a bus in these conditions. I got a lift home last night, and we skidded into a spin whilst cornering at about 3mph. South London, especially, has hills, and it's a bit lethal. There is very little traffic generally, and noone is doing much above 5mph.

[theoriginaltugs.livejournal.com]

The infrastructure to deal with snow just isn't there though. In the US, they have snowploughs and are fully expecting to have to deal with it day in, day out. In the UK if you buy a snowplough there will be years when it just sits in the depot doing nothing - not exactly a good return on investment is it?