Our first Code Red
By adamg - 1/13/08 - 7:02 pm
Harv did not mention the Blizzard of '78 on the 6 o'clock news tonight, but the fact that both he AND Dickie were on got our experts at Panic Central concerned. And when Dickie started talking about "a potential blockbuster" for tomorrow, well, we had little choice but to move the French Toast Alert Level all the way up to red. So go ahead and panic! Rush to the store NOW and stock up, before it's too late!
Harv says: Listen, people, I'm not fooling around here!
Comments
Supermarkets today
were nuts. I went to Harvest in JP, where everyone said they'd never seen a line so long. Another friend reported she went shopping out at Russo's and same thing -- nuts.
Milk and Bread
Totally insane, but we seemed to hit a bit of a bubble time at the Waltham Hanniford. We don't have our kitchen up yet so we really have to shop frequently, and on weekends when Dave is working during the week.
My sons giggled every time they heard somebody say "we need milk" or "we need bread".
French Toast Alerts seem to apply to diners, too. The one we hit before dropping my husband at work was actually running out of french toast!
Embarrassed
That would be krzdweasel:
Not a fan of the French toast
Mike Hillwig gets annoyed:
Aha...there lies the rub!!
Now...That's precisely what I was talking about when I said that people were going into panic mode and being lizard brains. They go in and buy out the entire supply of whatever's there--inotherwords the whole store. It's sickening.
Hyperbole what
Come on now, is it really truly in fact sickening if people buy a lot of something at the store?
Sickening
Maybe it is sickening if they eat it all at once, right away, in the parking lot ...
Frankly,
I find the whole Armageddon mentality that takes place prior to a big snowstorm quite sickening. I can see buying a lot of sonething at the store for a big dinner party or something, but before a storm? Ridiculous. Ablebodied people who live in the city can walk to the store the next day after the storm moves away and buy stuff. It's not necessary for the weather forecasters to sensationalize their forecasts and send people into a frenzy.
Don't you think people are
Don't you think people are smart enough by now to understand what 6-12 inches of snow is going to mean to them personally and adjust accordingly? I don't think blaming the weather forecasters is really particularly necessary.
There are times when I've gone out and braved big storms like
I've gone out and braved 6-12" snowstorms or other winter storms and taken the MBTA to errands, appointments or whatever here in the city--I don't have to worry about parking my car. When I go out and buy stuff at the store, I generally buy stuff a little bit at a time, so I can generally avoid the big lines at the store(s) that invariably come prior to a storm.
I can say that it's necessary to forecast the weather, but not necessary for the forecasters to get overly excited about doing so.
That's their job. They're
That's their job. They're meteorologists, yes, but they're also performers. Network newscasts are looking for ratings just as much as any other TV show.
And how do you define "overly excited", exactly?
So, it's their job
I don't have to like it when they act like such performers while forecasting the weather.
No, but do you have to rip
No, but do you have to rip them apart for doing what they're paid to do?
I can still say what I want to say.
n/m
And we can all say why your
And we can all say why your saying doesn't always make great sense.
Isn't life grand?
Who's perfect all the time?
n/m
The frenzy isn't because a
The frenzy isn't because a storm is coming. The frenzy is because everyone else is buying out the store. My wife got one of the last 3 loaves of bread last night at Whole Foods. (We've been out of bread for four days -- we weren't stocking up.) It's like a bank run -- once it starts, it's rational to join in, even though that makes the problem worse.
Again, it goes back to what I said earlier:
If cities and towns here in the Commonwealth could be relied upon to do a better job of snow removal during/after a large snowstorm, it would go a long way to a least minimizing the long lines at the stores, not to mention the rage & frustration that frequently results when the stores run out of food supplies. Frankly, I try not to join in and avoid it, because it's ridiculous. Again, if it was handled better by the Commonwealth on the whole, there wouldn't be so much of this.
Bring it on, Mother Nature, bring it on
Amy reports nothing tomorrow will match the horror that was her local Market Basket today:
That's an everyday occurrance, made worse by bad weather predic
These are everyday occurrences, made worse when bad weather's predicted. Sickening, imo
I went to our local Market Basket once, and haven't gone back. That place annoys me in another way: the aisles are way too narrow, and, yeah, particularly on any weekend, it's crowded to the gills.
That is just so ridiculous.
The media sends everybody into "Lizard Brain" mode before a snowstorm by sensationalizing it. Had to get some small stuff at the grocery store--and to be amid the "Lizard Brains" who were stocking up as if Armegeddon was coming. At least, living in the city, if I want or have to get somewhere, I've got public transportation at my disposal, thank heavens.
Weekend Shopping
I overheard several people say that they always shop on weekends anyway and it was only a bit more nuts than it usually is.
For the record, I saw far more elders there on a weekend than usual. Either they know something we don't or just don't have much room to store food. Maybe they just take these things more seriously because they really do get shut in by the deplorable conditions after snowstorms.
When elders are in that situation, it's way different.
It's understandable that elders would need to stock up more. What I can't understand, however, is that when young, ablebodied people pull the same shit. When I was in Whole Foods this afternoon, most of the people I saw who were going crazy and stocking up on food like Armageddon was coming were young and ablebodied people...not elders.
Come on now
That's just a boldfaced lie!
uh, what
Miki, what pray tell is a lizard brain?
Ok, eeka, here we go:
The term "lizard Brain" is a term that's used in reference to when people go into a survival mode, for whatever reason, whether it be due to war, famine, or whatever. Lizards often become frightened and sort of freak out in the process. The bottom line is that when some sort of crisis happens or is eminent, that's what people do...go into a survival mode. Not normal living. The panic mode that people were in is a perfect example of "lizard" brain. People going into survival mode.
Close but ...
"Lizard brain" doesn't refer to the behavior of lizards per se but to the more primitive part of the human brain that controls certain fundamental emotional responses that date back to our days in the primordial ooze and which has counterparts in other creatures with brains, including lizards. See amygdala.
But...
...why does it need quotes? And why can't they just be people who've been induced into panic mode? I'M SO CONFUSED
True...there's no need for quotation marks.
What it boils down it is that the term lizard brain really does refer to people who're in a panic mode. That's correct.
Um, basically right, but I
Um, basically right, but I still think this isn't the best use of the term.
The lizard brain, or amygdala, is responsible for (among other things) the fight-or-flight response. Going to the store for provisions isn't a fight-or-flight decision. You have to become aware of an impending storm, assess what's in the larder, consider how long you think it's going to be before you can get to the store again, and then determine that a store trip is a good idea.
That said, I'm sure people are indeed overreacting to this situation, but lots of people go to the store on Sundays. (I go on Saturday afternoons because I have the car and am out anyway. I do not prefer to go on Saturday afternoons; the store I frequent tends to be full of entitled yuppie-types at that time.)
Actually, Miki, you might be interested in the book "A Whole New Mind" by Daniel H. Pink. I've just started it, but it was highly recommended to me by a friend, and it's about how right-brained thinking is becoming more necessary to success in today's society than the left-brain thinking that's dominated the traditional workplace up to this point.
Hmmmm .... sounds like an interesting book.
Just might order it from a bookstore to read.
Also, molly,
The United States' reaction to 9/11, including our present war in Iraq, was also a good example in point of people going into the lizard brain mode.
Just. Don't.
Keep your laser focus on the snow here.
I'm just stating an example.
Where has free speech gone to? Hmmmm?
Were you not paying
Were you not paying attention over on that other board? How many times did someone squawk about "free speech" and get reminded that our First Amendment rights do not extend to privately-owned venues, such as this one?
Okay, so I'm not exactly a "merry sunshine" all the time.
So what? I'm just expressing my opinions also. No crime.
Is it bizzare?
BPS has already closed for tomorrow. Doesn't that seem a bit early to make that call? I'm still finding myself thinking that the recorded phone alert from Superintendent Johnson was just some odd figment of my imagination.
So have the Somerville Public Schools, for that matter.
It's one thing to declare a snow emergency tonight, but school closings that occur in advance are overkill...and unnecessary.
Except ...
How quickly we forget: Remember that during that first big storm, some kids didn't get home until 11:30 at night because of a snow storm in the middle of the day. Maybe that's why Boston decided to play it safe this time. After all, when Harv is wagging his finger like that, he means business.
Dedham is closed already, too.
But Adam, do you remember a weekend or two ago when we were supopsed to be hit with a big storm and then we didn't get a flake?
myDedham.org - a community since 1636 and online since 2007!
One big problem is that during the last big storm, however,
businesses and schools all let people out at the same time, which helped create a huge, huge gridlock that lasted for hours. Also, there weren't enough cops out and around to keep the *gridlock" situation under control and to a minimum.
True, but ...
There's another consideration:
The snow is supposed to start sometime after midnight and come down heaviest during the morning. So there's a good chance the city won't be able to plow out all the sidewalks and playround/parking lots at schools. The latter is important not just because teachers need a place to park but because at many schools, that's how the kids get from the buses to the schools - the ones that take the bus, as opposed to the ones who walk, who probably won't be able to get to school anyway.
Somerville doesn't have busing for the middle/elem schools.
There are enough elementary and middle schools in Somerville that kids walk to and from school, and the high school is in the middle of the city, so I'm not sure how kids get to the high school
MBTA
Kids use the regular and special-run MBTA buses to get to high school in Somerville and Medford. Somerville does not have middle schools - K-8 system.
Somerville is in the added bind that one of their grade schools burned down a few weeks ago due to a faulty heating system. This means added busing load until that school is repaired or rebuilt.
Ok, well,
I think Boston is different in that respect. Boston is a small enough city so that, had the bunch of lunatics on the school committee years ago not done their stupid and vicious grandstanding, busing wouldn't have been needed. Kids could've walked to or taken public transportation (MBTA, either trains or buses). Schools and neighborhoods alike in Boston would've been more integrated racially and socioeconomically, too. That B-BURG program that came before it was a disaster, also. Had B-BURG (Boston Banks Urban Renewal Group), which came in the late 1960's, been done differently and administered throughout the city of Boston, things would've been way, way different, imo.
There is no more forced busing in Boston
Our daughter takes a bus to school because we chose to send her to a school in a different neighborhood, not because we had to.
The busing crisis of the 1970s has absolutely nothing to at all to do with the superintendent's decision tonight to close schools tomorrow. Even if every single kid in the city walked to school or took the T, she still would have closed schools. Sheesh.
That's true, Adam, but,
I can understand closing the elementary schools, but, regarding the middle schools and high schools, that's a different story. Kids can easily take the MBTA or other public transportation.
Perhapd you don't remember
The four kids who were hit by a pickup while walking to West Roxbury High School in 2005 because the sidewalks were blocked by snow.
I admittedly didn't hear about that, but,
The fact that the sidewalks were blocked by snow is the fault of the city and/or the residents nearby that stretch of sidewalk who never bothered to clear it out.
Google is our friend
Actually, the DCR was responsible for that stretch of road.
Well, then,
the DCR went derelict on their responsibilities for clearning the snow off of that stretch of sidewalk. What happened to those kids was clearly preventable.
While we're on the subject of snow storms and snow removal, I'll be blunt: People should be fighting and possibly petitioning for better snow removal after big winter storms. Calling and/or emailing city councilors or aldermen, or town selectment, etc., wouldn't be a bad start. Frankly, if there was better snow removal, there wouldn't be so many problems in the wake of storms. Schools wouldn't necessarily have to be shut down, people wouldn't be getting into fights and/or coming to blows over parking spaces, and people wouldn't necessarily have to be getting into big lines in overcrowded stores all freaked out, for buying eggs, milk, etc, and people wouldn't have to cancel whatever plans they'd made.
I recall talking to one person who lived in Duluth, MN, and another person who lived up in VT sometime ago. Both of these people said that, where they lived, they've never, ever had to shut things down because of a snowstorm. They know they have the problem and know better how to deal with it than the Bay State does.
The problem is that, after all these years, cities and towns haven't learned to really deal with it. Part of it is due to Mother Nature's unpredictability--our hit or miss winters.
The Global warming that's been happening, and the fact that Dubya has taken the teeth out of the Kyoto Protocol on Global Warming that Al Gore helped create during Bill Clinton's Admn back in 1997 has helped make this situation worse.
They need teachers ...
Teachers need to get there to teach kids, and get back home to get their own kids. When the great flash freeze hit when my youngest was in Kindergarten, the principal rushed over as I walked in to the cafeteria with my kids and begged me to stay because he had two teachers and that was it! (he had arrived before it happened, the two teachers there live a couple blocks away). I ended up supervising his class for half an hour before the aide arrived. She only lived cross-town, but got stuck in the mayhem. The teacher lived 10 miles out and was an hour late!
We are fortunately well past the era when only local unmarried women were all that were hired for teaching jobs, limiting the available talent pool and restricting experience levels.
Bite Me
You didn't have to get a custodian to smash a lock on a school fridge so kids could eat at 6pm because their bus didn't come until 9:30.
Or are you volunteering to babysit at the nearest school the next time there is a mass stranding?
Hey, listen, if this post is to me, you're missing the point.
this isn't like the Blizzard of '78, hopefully.
Secondly, the reason that these situations cropped up is because they do such a crappy job of snow removal in many, if not most cities and towns here in the Commonwealth. Better snow removal after storms and tougher enforcement of snow emergency laws are what people should be fighting for and petitioning for, imo.
Um, I'm pretty sure Anon was
Um, I'm pretty sure Anon was talking about the Blizzard of A Few Weeks Ago, not '78. I know I saw school buses taking kids home between 9 and 10PM that night.
Blizzard of '78
Correct me if I'm wrong, but people died in that blizzard because they ignored what warnings were there and went to school, to work, etc. anyway. When things turned out much worse than originally forecast, a severe but not unknown event paralyzed the city for over a week.
If you wonder why people "overreact" in your estimation, it is because the risks of "underreacting" are much more severe.
Back then, however,
there wasn't this Armegeddon mentality that exists right now. I was living in the city at that time and was able to get around and about after the Blizzard of '78. The trouble is, that nowadays, overreacting doesn't help either, and it gets many people frustrated and ticked off. Granted, common sense should be used when a big storm is in the forecast, but overreacting never really works. Unfortunately, people often don't use their heads, which is a huge problem.
You know this .... how?
My husband, a lifer, tells me different!
Different people have different experiences.
I'm somebody who likes to walk or bike in the good weather. I've also hoofed it and taken public transportation during snowstorms and other winter storms. Quite frankly, I have no patience with young, ablebodied people who complain about having to walk afew more feet or take public transportation.
Walking in the snow
I don't get it either. I think most people who shop at the Roche Bros in West Rox. live within walking distance. Yet it descends into utter madness at every snowstorm.
Some of the best memories I have from childhood are of snow days. I guess that's not unusual. What may be unusual is that the most fun thing my brother and I did on snow days was walk three miles to the supermarket in the snow. My mother would give us a small bribe to get along while she was at work, and we would spend it on food we normally wouldn't be able to have.
No figment
Unless it's mass hysteria, since we just got a robo-call, too. The kidlet is most happy, needless to say.
enjoy yourself
The old version of Oliver Twist is on 44 if they feel like staying up.
What she'll be staying up late for
Finishing "The Titan's Curse."
Me, I get to go to bed at the normal time because having a job where almost everything you do is on a computer network just means you get to work at home :-).
I told the kids if they did
I told the kids if they did all their homework, and practiced the piano AND the clarinet then they would get a snowday.
When the robocall came through they wouldn't let us listen, I am sad to find confirmation here. Oh well, see you on the slopes.
Wow, BPS must really be serious this time
We just got another robo-call about the schools being closed - this time in Spanish. First time we've ever gotten one en espanol.
NO SCHOOL! NO SCHOOL! NO SCHOOL!
(covers ears)
Thing 1 and thing 2 just came up and hugged me good night ... now they are chanting chanting chanting. Mefuh must have called it off.
Harvey Leonard....please shut up!!
We don't need people like you sensationalizing an upcoming big snowstorm the way you do! Thanks.
Oh, now, it's nice to see
Oh, now, it's nice to see someone like Harvey so publically enthusiastic over their line of work. There are enough Debbie Downers in this world already.
Turn off your computer, open up the curtains, and enjoy a beautiful New England Storm. There'll be more to bitch about tomorrow. Promise.
Ohhhhhhh...too bad I'm not like YOU, Anon-o-mous!
I'll be a "Debbie Downer" as much as I want, sweetie. What's so shit-assed wonderful about a snowstorm that brings excessive amounts of snow? Nothing, as far as I'm concerned. Don't tell me to do what you're going to do. I still wish Harvey Leonard would shut up a little bit. Thanks.
Extremism in the defense of snow is no vice
It's pretty. You can go sledding on it. It covers up all the trash.
Well....
Maybe people should be cleaning up their trash more and there'd be little or nothing to hide.
I don't go sledding
It's pretty, but I hate excessive amounts of it.
I'm not excited about it, and have a right not to be, and it's a stupid thing to get ultra happy about.
What do you get ultra happy about?
It it stupid, too?
Hmm...
West Side Story? Civic Hybrids? Banning pitbulls? Comparing people to Louise Day Hicks? Just some guesses.
I can find better things to get ultra-happy about
I can find better things to be ultra-happy about than a big snowstorm.
In no particular order:
When I've tuned somebody's piano and have made them happy, because their piano sounds better than it did before
When I've newly created a silversmithing piece of jewelry, small box, or whatever, and people clearly like what I do and compliment on it or buy a piece.
During the spring and fall, which are my favorite seasons
When my alltime favorite film comes to town or on TV.
None of the above are stupid, imo,
In the good, warm weather...bikeriding, either for errands/appointments in town, or on a long-distance bikeride out in the country.
I BET I KNOW WHAT THAT FILM
I BET I KNOW WHAT THAT FILM IS.
Ahem. Excuse me.
No, of course you don't think those things are stupid, because they're your things that make you happy. Why do you feel the need to tear down someone else's thing that makes them happy?
Whatever floats your boat
I could make a case for any of those being stupid, but I won't. This is a wonderful world with so many limitless possibilities; who are you to rain (or in this case snow) on somebody else's parade? If you don't like snow, that's fine, but that's not reason to attack somebody who does.
Because it was obvious that Anonymous wanted me to think the way
the s/he does about it, which ain't my style. too bad for her.
I don't think that was
I don't think that was obvious at all. I think Anon was giving you a suggestion for a more productive way to handle your feelings about the storm, not insisting that you agree with hir.
Anonymous's suggestion:
Anonymous's suggestion that I simply sit and look out the window and enjoy the sight of the storm is simply not my cup of tea.
Classic!
Sarcastic headline, check.
False use of pet names, check.
Unnecessary swearing, check.
Overly defensive reaction and reiteration of original opinion, check.
Second comment backing up first, only with an even more insulting slant, check.
That's a five-for-five, classic Miki-style rebuttal, folks. Do not try this at home.
an-no-mous, baby....
don't dispense stupid advice. thanks.
And your credentials are ...
Last I checked, Harv had a serious degree and decades of weather forecasting experience, most of it in this region.
What are your qualifications to challenge his (and others) predictions? The last two school superintendents to display your attitude ended up with schools full of kids trapped at closing time (Arlington a couple of years back had new guy from another state ignore the prediction of white-outs at 2pm. Boston - new superintendent fresh from the South, didn't fully understand and wasn't properly briefed, etc.).
So what?
"Last I checked, Harv had a serious degree and decades of weather forecasting experience, most of it in this region."
Biiiiiig deal....so what. He's still a blowhard.
And I suppose ...
that the National Weather Service is just grandstanding, too?
Of course they are, the tarts
Look at how they're using red in their forecast!
It could be worse ...
We could still be covered by wankum!
I forgot to laugh.
n/m
They seem to have downgraded
They seem to have downgraded to six to twelve inches (huh huh), but that's still substantial.
What I really find irritating and irksome is the fact that
the media sensationalizes the forecasts, sending many people into a stupidassed panic mode, where they go and buy out the whole grocery store, or whatever.
They closed jury duty. I
They closed jury duty. I don't remember seeing that before, but I don't usually scroll down past Newton in the closings list.
Oh, but really...
As much as I enjoy playing devil's advocate (and so help me, I do), there are 608 closings for what now is supposed to be 4-8 inches of snow.
Why can't this commonwealth seem to cope with snow?
because they're too busy bickering over whatever, plus
.
Unfortunately, though, the Commonwealth has learned llittle or nothing from the Blizzard of 1978 about how to handle large amounts of snow. During the blizzard of '78, which took roughly a week to dig out of, cities and towns here in the Commonwealth ended up putting the snow in huge trucks and hauling it away and dumping it in landfills. Why can't they do likewise now?
Environmental issues
First, many towns no longer have landfills. Second, the last thing you want to do is dump large amounts of snow on an active landfill, because it can seep into the dump when it melts and leech out all those toxic chemicals.
One has to ask why
many other places, such as the midwest, and Northern New England (i.e, VT, NH, ME), handle snow much more competently than the Bay State does, and have never had to shut things down because of a snowstorm? They know they have the problem and are always fully equipped to deal with it. The Bay State, unfortunately, hasn't learned how, after all these years.
If it had snowed Sunday ...
There would be no problem. But the height of the storm was predicted for the morning rush hour.
Does Vermont even have rush hour?
Vermont rush hour
ski mobiles replace automobiles for snowy rush hour commutes
probably right around the cities they do.
i. e, Montpelier, Winooski, etc.,
Discussion closed
Since it seems the only new posts are, when you get right down to it, bickering that really brings nothing new to the discussion of why we're at a Code Red French Toast Alert.