This happened. For those of us in Guilford, Alamance, Orange and pieces of other counties in the Piedmont, we’ve had quite the weekend. I decamped from my Greensboro apartment to a hotel in Durham near an old apartment of mine. Others were trapped behind trees with snapped limbs or completely uprooted. As of this writing, I’m back in my apartment and the lights are on. At one point at least 400,000 people were out of power statewide. Here’s who continues to not have any statewide. I’m going to hold my Duke Energy #fail jokes. Who didn’t fail: several of our mayors, city council members and state representatives in keeping us informed through Facebook where Duke Energy didn’t. Anyway, it’s going to be 70 degrees today, we are all thawed out, we are dealing with those trees, you’re here for other news and here it is. Happy Monday!
Oh and shout out to The Atlantic Cities for including the Placebook on being a Walmart town as one of the best #cityreads of last week. Also, don’t forget, we have a bigger house now. After a message from our sponsors, you can find the news below or head over there too.
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This is a special snow and sleet-covered edition of Placebook, live from the middle of the storm. In fact, because we are in storm conditions, the roundups are going to be a bit different this morning. I give you Snow and Everything Else.
Snow
Yes, cars in Raleigh caught on fire. I’ll admit, just like Slate has said, that we are a mess (but so are most of the states on the East Coast). And people did camp out at Southpoint Mall. I did have several Facebook friends in this state who were walking home after leaving their cars, or getting their cars home after commutes of minutes became commutes of an hour or more. I know of at least one accident and marveled at the 100 in Greensboro alone within one hour (scroll down, this is the running post of snow coverage in Greensboro). However, everyone I know is safe, people were fed and clothed and people were generous. For that, I commend you. Please continue to exercise safety and caution, and look at these pretty pictures! Play this game when you watch the TV coverage of the snow/ice/sleet event. Call the power company and go to a shelter if you have to. Otherwise, just stay home.
Everything Else
A man spent 28 hours on a bus by choice and he loved it.
Somebody else asks why poor people can’t have nice things, namely nice stores.
Sometimes, all you can do is make sure you buy enough food at Harris Teeter to get ready for weird weather.
So we’ve had another situation of weather causing bizarre things to happen. Whether it’s snow in Atlanta or a major hurricane in New York, Americans seem to never tire of comparisons to the zombie apocalypse or The Day After Tomorrow. Never mind that in a few weeks we’ll forget this never happened, while those affected may still not have their old house back almost 10 years later.
So this all leads me to what we should and shouldn’t do, at least when it comes to community-building and placemaking and management, when a natural disaster happens.
Take those personal natural disaster plans seriously.
Don’t be the person who giggles when it’s time to stop, drop and roll. You’ll want to roll into a ball if you didn’t remember to pack a blanket, clothes and everything else that goes into a roadside disaster emergency kit. So you’re a bike or subway kid, throw an extra shirt and your meds into your bag. Even planes will let you carry those on. Let your pipes drip. Sprinkle the ice melt. Make sure you can fit in the bathtub. Drink enough water and put on sunscreen. Drive slow, but not too slow. Sometimes we need to admit that there are some effects of natural disasters we can prevent.
Act as a region or have a plan for regional disaster preparedness
As we saw in Atlanta with #snowgridlock, and of course famously with Katrina in New Orleans, the powers-to-be were not even ready for what they saw. Yes, you may salt the roads. Yes, the weatherman on TV may move the eye of the storm further south. But that doesn’t excuse why you don’t have enough money for the right amount of disaster preparedness. It doesn’t allow you to blame the municipality next door that you don’t like and claim as a blight on society. Anyone who wants and needs to go to a shelter should be able to. If people want to guard their homes or stay outside, let them (I just warned them about their safety). However, if you as a municipality have no real plan for the weather, then yes, you deserve the shame that you get. Side note to all the issues involved with no transit in Atlanta. Yes having more MARTA trains could have helped. Still, the night this was all happening, I saw two trains come into the Greensboro station and sit there for 30 minutes to an hour longer than they should have. Remember when half of Manhattan’s tunnels flooded during Hurricane Sandy? Transportation breaks down sometimes. Sometimes.
Don’t laugh at or perpetrate problematic stereotypes of people in trouble.
We love to use weather events that are abnormal to bring up stereotypes, right? The only exception would probably be with earthquakes and tornadoes. I was quite disturbed with the coverage of the Southern #snowgridlock that was making fun of people sleeping and staying wherever they could for upwards of 24-48 hours, which in some cases meant Whole Foods, Home Depot, The Waffle House and at worse their car claiming that this is why we as Southerners were so backwards. So all the folks that get stranded at Logan and JFK during northern storms are funny too? Oh and don’t get me started on the “refugees” of New Orléans from Hurricane Katrina.
Keep the Home Depot or _______________(business/school/church) Open To Make Sure People Are Ok
There’s a reason schools are routinely used as disaster shelters when people know that something big and bad is coming. They have room for tons of cots, they have massive cafeterias, many have locker rooms with lots of showers. Hence why the kids that were stuck at them were better off than the rest of us. What I loved about what happened in the 2014 Atlanta and Birmingham situation is that I was that so many of these non-traditional shelters stayed open and did what they could to keep people entertained and fed and the like. Southern hospitality is the one stereotype I love and I love it because that’s community and placemaking at its highest point.
Don’t Share Information That’s Not True
If you don’t listen to anything I say on this post, please listen to this, be careful what you tweet or share on social networks, especially when it comes to a major storm system or something else that is happening in real time. Hence why I shared multiple views of the Atlanta storm and emphasized the ground coverage being done in Atlanta by news outlets and Instagrams and Twitters from actual residents of the cities that were affected. Also, make sure your information on relief efforts is coming from the right area nonprofit. All Red Crosses are not the same and able to do the same things. Also, tweeting something like the name of someone who died before the family can get the phone call is also insensitive.
Feel Guilty When You Can’t Keep Something Bad from Happening
Some of us chatting about the Atlanta storm response were reminded of 2005 in Raleigh. I thought I was going to take the campus Wolfline bus back to my dorm , but instead all the buses stopped running and Hillsborough Street was gridlocked, along with much of the Triangle. All that kept me from doing is getting a ride home versus walking like I normally do. Other people were stranded at schools and offices too. Yet, this time Raleigh closed school early, preventing any surprises as far as weather from affecting the students and parents throughout the county. Yet, the folks who get hit by freakish tornadoes and 100 year floods can’t always be ready for the worst. That’s ok, just do your best as individuals and as a community to be ready.
So this ends my PSA on disaster preparedness and coping. Hopefully this reminder will help us continue to grow stronger communities, especially when we and the weather are at our worst.
Editors note, January 4, 2018: I wrote this when I still lived in Greensboro and was still allowed to marvel at the snow. Since I wrote this I feel like it snows in Greensboro and points south and slightly west at least once a year when it didn’t use to. It also gets cold. However, I think it’s worth reminding people everyone’s not prepared for inclement weather of any type. Especially my friends and colleagues that I’ve picked up out West and in the MidAtlantic states. Go here though to prepare for walking and biking in extreme cold and extreme heat.
Last night (January 18, 2013) in Greensboro, Richmond, Charlotte, Raleigh, and yesterday afternoon in Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia, it snowed. That’s kind of a big deal for us.
Chicagoians, New Yorkers, Canadians, and any and all others who see snow once a week from September to March can go ahead and laugh.
Why does the sight (and to be honest, the thought) of snow make us go crazy and strip grocery shelves of bread and milk? Here are my thoughts as to why:
–First, 90% of our snow forecasts never happen. There should be a YouTube file of all the times our local weather folks go out in their weather gardens and start getting us hyped up over one snowflake or the temperature that might drop below freezing at just the right time. I also give points to this being our first snow forecast of the year and it actually happening. Especially since I did my Target run at 4:30 p.m. in a torrential rain downpour. By 7:30 this was a snow pour, with thunder and lightning. Yeah, how about that weather.
–Because 90% of our snowcasts never happen, We can count the times we’ve seen snow on our hands. While this is more true for Gen X and Millennial southerners, my boomer parents and war generation grandparents still get just as excited. Maybe it’s because my parents remember helping me make a snowman in 1988 that was twice my height (I was 3). Maybe it’s because they remember how in 1993 we had a mixture of snow and ice just like we did last night. The power went out. Meanwhile, 2000 shut down the whole city for 8 days. We went to school for extra hours for the rest of the year after that. 2001 gave us the thought of a white Christmas. 2010 actually brought us one.
–And here we are now at 2013. I’ll be putting on my snow boots to get to work soon, but for now, I’m going to enjoy the thought that it’s just enough to be pretty and not enough to be a major hassle. Even the train (and the buses) are running. Well, the Piedmont is. Check it out at the station below. Queue the thoughts of Thomas the Tank Engine in the snow. The power will come on soon. The sun is shining.
I will step away from the humor again for a moment and wish for safe travels for those of you who are traveling. Call the power company until they get the power back on. If they can stop cutting down our trees because we protest, they can do their basic job of restoring power too. Oh and I think the sun will melt the snow off my car. I’m thankful I’m walking distance.
Amtrak’s Piedmont arrives for its morning run on January 19, 2013. (Photo Credit Kristen Jeffers)
Anyway, happy snow day fellow Southerners! Be careful no matter what you have to do, take lots of pictures, and add this one to the finger count. Also, here’s the link to the latest reports from the News & Record, with a nice picture right outside my office.
