Snowbound Podunk

Seemingly non stop snow, Artic outflow winds and a struggling public works crew brought Podunk to the brink of standstill this morning. Over a foot of snow had fallen by 4 am, pushed into drifts by 50 to 70 km winds. Clogged intersections, slippery roads and treacherous hills, made autobody shop owners dream of early retirement.

In an unusual strategy of snow removal it seemed that the Podunk Public Works department chose to wait out the storm, rather than proactively plow streets as the drifts accumulated. The snow had stopped by
4 am but it seemed that the crews were not out until around 7. By the morning drive to work the town was a mess of cars locked to the curb by waist high drifts, those that could free themselves from the drifts, quickly found that there was no place to park once they got to where they were going. Only folks shopping at grocery stores had a hope of a clear parking spot today.

Perhaps this is a preview of life in Podunk when we hit our budget wall. Podunk council is presently trying to decide how to pare it's budget in order to make up for lost tax income over the last three years. Podunk Public works claims all three trucks, three tractors and all crews were on the job, but the task must have been daunting as the streets remained clogged late into the day.

Cabs were running over an hour behind, when they were running at all. At one point Podunk taxi only had three cars on the road, run ragged as they tried to move from point A, to B, without getting stuck at C. It's expected that the Podunk crews will continue this evening to try and ready the town for tomorrow's return to work. It usually takes the crews about 14 hours to catch up when hit by a dump like this, and that is usually aided by a warm Pacific front arriving to aid in the removal.

With more snow in the forecast for Podunk tonight and a cold wind blowing from the North, nature is taking a pass in snow removal help this time around. Scraping shovels and spinning tires, the sound of Podunk in the snow.