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Back in the dark and dreary days of late December 2016, as Seattleites braced for as much as four inches of snow, the town’s brave residents were good sports when critics needled them for being big babies whenever the white stuff fell.
Writing in the Seattle Times, Evan Bush fully acknowledged that his city, “with its glacier-cut hills and Byzantine street system, has developed a rather unimpressive reputation when it comes to snow. In 2012, traffic became so badly snarled that the Los Angeles Times — yes, from sunny Southern California – called us ‘snow wimps’ in a headline and said the city ‘always marched unarmed into its infrequent battles with snow.’”
As Bush put it, “you have to admit the Californians might have a point.”
Seattle is now getting ready for as many as eight inches of snow this evening, turning the Emerald City into the Lily White City. How will they do? Luckily they’ve had a number of opportunities in the past to practice the drill. Hopefully they’ll weather this one better than the storm that hit in 2010, Bush said, “when commuters spent a cold overnight on southbound Interstate 5 after jack-knifed semi, a bus and other vehicles crashed near Boeing field.”
Or in 2008, when “an icy slide down Capitol Hill streets left two charter buses dangling precariously over Interstate 5.”
Or way back in 1916, when a February blizzard dumped 38 inches on the hilly city beside Puget Sound.
As Seattleites empty out store shelves, fill up on gasoline and generally try not to freak out as the first snows are about to falls, let’s look back on how the snow wimps of the great Northwest have performed in past storms. Warning: It’s not a pretty sight!
This video shows some of the mayhem after a 2012 storm:
This man deserves kudos, if not a few chuckles, for his creativity:
