Snow vomit

Normal Wet Coast weather has returned. As I type this, it is a balmy 5 degrees Celsius and it is pouring rain out. It has been raining hard since very early this morning. The forecasters are all predicting rain until – oh, let’s say forever.

This is good because it will melt all that damn snow. Yes. Except now we are being warned about the dangers of flooding. Clear all drains and catch basins, we are being implored. Yes. Except we can’t find them under all that damn snow – oh did I say that already?

After almost 24 hours of steady rain, we now have bare and wet main streets, deep slippery slush on not-so-main streets, and lots of crunchy, icy snow covered in shallow slush on sidewalks and anywhere else from which snow wasn’t removed often enough in the past three weeks. We still have the enormous snow drifts alongside the roads. I think those may be here till summer.

It was like treading thick, deep water to walk across my school parking lot today. It’s not very nice. DD has coined the phrase “snow vomit”, because as she so eloquently put it: “Think about when you throw up, Mom. Think about the consistency of it. It’s all liquidy with chunks in it. Isn’t the snow just like that now?”

Um … agreed. But could we skip the detailed description? And could we please close the schools? I don’t care about the money any more, but I’m so tired of having to wear my boots every day.

No snow day

School reopened after the Christmas holidays today. (Note: I am supposed to say “Winter Break” as per the politically correct drivel that is produced by my school district and many other school districts. I refuse to call it that. It is a vacation period that exists solely because Christmas exists. Everybody, even those who don’t celebrate Christmas, knows this. So let’s call it what it is, people. It’s not about respect, it’s about a two-week holiday. Just a holiday. And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.)

We had yet another dump of snow last night, starting about dinnertime. Rain had been predicted, but instead we got snow. We were unprepared. It was chaos. There was sheer ice underneath the new snow, so driving was extremely hazardous. Even well-travelled main arteries were closed, they were so dangerous. (Stop me if you’ve heard this before.)

In the midst of all this came the wail, “But school starts tomorrow! What shall we do?”

I’ll tell you what my school district did: nothing. The decision was made to have all the schools reopen as planned. Except for the schools where there was some danger due to all the snow (like a sagging roof or fallen tree). Or the power was out. Or not enough teachers were able to get there to actually run classes. Or the sun and moon and stars were aligned in some mystical configuration.

Several neighbouring school districts announced by 6:30 in the morning that all their schools would be closed. My district did not. Decisions to send kids home from a few schools in my district were made in a rather haphazard fashion. Two of my colleagues this morning told stories about finally arriving at other schools to drop off their own kids, after an arduous and snowy journey there, only to be told by an administrator that the school was closed and the kids who made it in were being sent home. What were parents supposed to do then? How could you make child-care arrangements in such a situation?

To add insult to injury, my district has decreed that in the event of a snow day, teachers are still expected to show up for work. If we do not, we do not get paid for the day. Huh?!? So the kids don’t have to come but we do? It’s too hazardous for the kids to get there (many of whom live close enough to walk), but it’s fine for the teachers (most of whom live too far to walk and must drive because a lot of elementary schools aren’t on bus routes)?

If the schools are closed because of weather, then I think they should be closed for everyone. Teachers (and other staff members) are as important as the kids, and if it’s dangerous for kids, it’s dangerous for everyone who works in the building. In addition, it’s probably very dicey driving to work on such a day – and you couldn’t really work normally anyway because the kids wouldn’t be there. And while I understand the concept of “No-work-equals-no-pay”, surely some contingency plan can be put into place when our workplace is shut down due to circumstances beyond everybody’s control – maybe some form of employment insurance or partial pay?

But I think what bugs me the most is that my school was open, I made it to work okay (though I had to drive extremely cautiously and slowly on the icy patches), and most of the kids showed up. I couldn’t sleep in, stay in my jammies till noon, drinking lattés, and reading all my favourite blogs. Recess is over, kids.

The white stuff

Well, it looks like we in the Vancouver area are going to have that most rare of occasions: a white Christmas.

We do have them occasionally. There was a bit of snow that switched to rain and back again in 2007, and in 1998, we had about 20 centimetres on the ground. (I could research further back, but it’s Sunday afternoon and I’m feeling lazy.) It’s often cold and icy at Christmas, but it is usually green.

The snow problem in Vancouver is twofold: 1) our snow is more “wet” than what falls in the prairies or the East Coast, so although our temperature may be only -2 or -3ºC, it gets right into your bones because of the damp. Temperatures much lower than that in Québec, for example, don’t feel nearly as awful, because the air is so much drier. For this, I suppose we can thank the fact that we live in a rain forest here.

Number 2 problem is that when it snows a few centimetres here, it is chaos. We are simply not equipped to carry on with normal life when it snows. We don’t have the snow removal budget or equipment to properly plow and sand major routes as much as they need, we don’t know how to drive in it anyway, and many of us don’t even have proper snow clothing to walk to the nearest liquor store for some fortifying alcohol to get us through this traumatic time.

But Vancouver is surrounded by mountains (well, not entirely: where there are no mountains, there is water), so there is skiing. All this snow in the city means way more snow on the slopes, so skiers and snowboarders are all happy. If they can get to the mountain to ski or snowboard. Because the roads are hilly and covered in snow. And the snowplows and sandtrucks can’t keep up.

So, you might as well stay home in front of the blazing fire, glass of wine in hand, plate of Christmas baking close by, gazing out the window at the fat snowflakes that have been drifting down steadily since last night, and say, “It’s so pretty outside!”

It really is very pretty. But when it stops, I will have to shovel. A lot.