soren wrote:
As a past resident of the area, I have friends living in the immediate area who have no power at their homes, as a result of long runs of power poles SNAPPED clean off at ground level, due to winds were up to 90 MPH . If anybody had the mistaken impression that this is just some typical winter storm that was mismanaged by all the evil state and local bureaucrats, it isn't that simple. When the giant noreaster hit the D.C area during the Obama years, and the city was closed for nearly a week, I spent 30 hours stuck and crawling on rt 81 in VA. What I learned in that mess is that much of the issue is caused by clueless, incompetent truck drivers. Traveling the entire Shenandoah Valley, I got to see hundreds and hundreds of class eight trucks crashed. Any attempt to get anything accomplished to clear a blockage in the road ONLY happened when the VA state police would go from cab to cab and tell each trucker to hold, move forward, yield to the plows etc....Otherwise some of these fools seemed to think that the best way forward was full speed ahead, until they were crashed in the medians or over the sides, and twisted up in big tangles on climbs. I really believe that, absent the truck traffic, 90% of the problems would never of happened.
Even if the majority of truckers on the road are competent professionals, there is a significant minority that haven't got a clue, and little experience with operating in a blizzard. On a major trucking corridor with tens of thousands of rigs a day heading in and out of the NYC and New England markets, a significant blizzard, with hurricane winds, is always going to be ugly.
I think truckers are held to such tight schedules that they are almost forced to keep plowing ahead or face penalties from their employers. Safety should always take priority but some don't see it that way. I've driven in some pretty tough weather where visibility is very poor and the trucks keep rolling along. They must have radar in their cabs.
