Friday, January 21, 2005

Another winter storm, another run on anything white in the grocery store.

It's predicted that the DC area will be getting eight to ten inches of snow tomorrow. A decent amount for these parts, to be sure. If we get the high end amount, or even a little bit more, it could take two or three days for the region to dig itself out.

Looking ahead to next week, the prediction is for a warming trend, with temperatures in the high 30s on Tuesday and mid 40s by Wednesday. So at the very, very worst, even the most cautious Washingtonian would only be snowbound for four days. Surely there's no need to stock up on supplies for this "weather event," right?

Wrong. I was just at the Safeway downstairs in my office building, and the lines at every checkout were five people deep, and each one of those people had a cart full of bread, eggs, milk, and toilet paper. And it wasn't just folks who you would expect to be trepidatious about going out on snowy roads. There were plenty of young, able-bodied men and women with multiple packs of Charmin and dozens of eggs.

It's been over twenty years since I first moved here. You'd think by now I'd be used to this seasonal insanity. Yet here I sit in slack-jawed wonder at the immense overreaction a few snowflakes can cause in the nation's capital.

Posted @ 1:25 PM

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