Save Yourselves

On the only-80%-full 4 train this morning, I saw a woman reading the Daily News. The cover said "CHILD'S PLAY," and the sub-headline said something about how the city was "almost" back to normal today.
You may not have heard, but we got a little snow here the last couple days. That's sarcasm. The media blitz over this pretty standard winter event is embarrassing. I heard a group of three Australian guys in the elevator making fun of the wall-to-wall coverage of the snow on the news. Australians, for godsakes.(1) The storm is long over and the sun is out this morning, but I think the weather service is still trying to predict another 5-6 inches of BLIZZARD.
On Tuesday night, weather.com's special weather alert stated that until Thursday AM, total expectation was 10-16 inches. On Wednesday at about 9AM, when we had to that point only received perhaps an inch or two, it was the same. Wednesday at noon, maybe 2-3 inches total, and they upgraded the forecast to 12-17 inches, plus added a few disclaimers stating (paraphrase): "It may seem like the storm is over but it is not. Conditions will severely worsen. This is only the lull before the big one. Death. Destruction. Plague. Make sure to tune in to The Weather Channel for tips on how to survive the fallout."
I woke up this morning and there couldn't have been more than 6-7 inches in Downtown Brooklyn. Midtown is the same, though because of the shovel brigades from the office buildings, the sidewalks are already dry here.(2) So, spread out over about a 24 hour period, we received no more than 8 inches. I'm very confident that at no period did we ever exceed an inch per hour.
City public schools preemptively canceled classes yesterday. Sara's private school called Wednesday off as early as lunchtime Tuesday. I wonder how stupid these administrators feel today. Everybody loves a day off, sure,(3) but some discretion, please. It's a little snow. Not volcanic ash. Not a swarm of locusts. Not a tornado or a tsunami or an earthquake. Snow. I experience much greater annoyance getting around in heavy rain/wind than in a half-foot of snow.


1. I checked wikipedia. Trying to find a geographically diverse set of Southern Australian cities, I chose Perth, Melbourne, Canberra, and Sydney. Only Canberra ever receives any snow, but: "Light snow falls in the city in one out of approximately three winters but is usually not widespread and quickly dissipates." Here is what it says about Sydney: "Snowfall was last reported in the Sydney City area in 1836."
2. I've heard that snowfall within the predicted amount occurred in areas outside the city, that these areas received 2-3 times as much as we got here. I don't really know what to say. 8 million people live inside the city. I assume 100% of city schoolchildren and parents live inside the city. With some reasonable delays, all the commuting options have been running fine throughout.
3. Hell, I left the office early, at about 3:15 yesterday afternoon. The doom and gloom reports left the office virtually empty, so why stick around? One of my bosses sent multiple emails urging us to go home and avoid the fury.