Mayor Bill DeBlasio’s career as a weather forecaster is forever tarnished. The current mayor of New York City predicted that yesterday’s storm would be one of historic proportions, would be one for the record-books, and would be one that would dump three feet of snow on Manhattan.
A blizzard?! No way! Three feet of snow?! Gedouddahere! I thought. The city isn’t going to see three feet of snow – this is a Nor’easter. Not that we haven’t had some blizzards. It’s just that they usually come from some other direction. Nor’easters follow the warm-water Gulf Current, which takes the storms north and east of the Metropolitan Area, which is how they got their name – “nor’easters.”
Don’t be too hard on DeBlasio for getting carried away, though – at least not for this mistake. He was born in Manhattan, sure. But he was raised in Cambridge, Mass., just outside of Boston, where two-foot blizzards are common. Boston’s a heck of a lot colder than New York City (weather-wise, at least). If DeBlasio is so fond of blizzards (perhaps he was homesick for Boston blizzards), he should go back to Boston and become mayor of Beantown. Leave New York City to the real New Yorkers.
Gov. Christie, to his credit, knew better than to make fantastic weather predictions. He knew it probably wasn’t going to be the blizzard of the century, even if Hurricane Sandy did make that highly unusual left-angle turn at Atlantic City instead of going the way of all northeast storms. He was born in New Jersey and has lived here all of his life.
Still, he took command of the state’s highways, even though he probably knew this wasn’t likely to even be a major storm. He not only knows New Jersey weather; he knows New Jersey drivers. After the 600 hundred-plus accidents from last Saturday’s storm, he wasn’t taking any more chances; he shut down all the highways in the state.
He reluctantly reopened the highways this morning. Within ten minutes of reopening a highway somewhere in South Jersey, there was an accident. The New Jersey News 12 reporter had it right: The driver was a knucklehead.
In New Jersey (and New York City and Long Island), it’s not the snow. It’s not the ice. It’s the drivers. Metropolitan area drivers don’t slow down for anyone or anything. They’ll fly down Waughaw Mountain on Route 287 in an ice or snowstorm like it’s the Fourth of July. They cut off 18-wheelers as though the sun was blazing away in a blue sky.
News 12 New Jersey has cameras mounted on numerous key highway overpasses. The snow-covered roads were pretty much abandoned. Which meant, to the lone cowboy passing the camera, that it was okay to be doing about 60 m.p.h. Who cares? No one else was on the road, right?
Alaskans have laughed at New Jersey’s notion of a “blizzard.” Two feet of snow? Try ten. Here in New Jersey, the most densely-populated state in the nation with the most idiotic drivers per square mile, a mere 8 inches of snow is pretty much like ten feet of snow in Alaska.
Too many cars squeezed onto two few roads driven by too many careless drivers in an average snowstorm equals Snowpocalypse. Gov. Christie was probably hoping it would be a blizzard because that’s about the only way to keep Jersey drivers off the roads in bad weather.
The little children in us are disappointed that we didn’t have a blizzard. No school. Snow forts, snowmen, and snowball fights, followed by hot chocolate with marshmallows and cinnamon graham crackers. The old adults in us are grateful we didn’t have to shovel three feet of snow off our cars and driveways.
Let Boston have their blizzards. Here in the Garden State, three inches of snow is just right; enough to be pretty without giving residents a backache and DOT officials a headache.
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