Today was even worse. What makes it worse is that the schools have essentially used up all the days they can cancel, while the county seems to have used up all the money for snowplowing. So entire freeways were closed because of all the cars and trucks that span off. Here's what it looked like this evening, giving some evidence of roads that had only been cleared to the extent that cars had flattened the snow:
Simon only had to drive to work and back today--a total of around 3 miles. I had the pleasure of taking Thomas to school, 45 miles there, then drive another 15 miles to my "outreach" course in a nearby high school (to high schoolers who were unwise enough to let on to someone that they were vaguely interested in a career in healthcare sciences), then back to Thomas, and then back home--a total of 120 miles. When we awoke, it didn't look so bad--obviously it had snowed last night, but nothing amazing. But then the snow started pouring down, an inch every hour for the next 5 hours. The drive to Thomas's school, which normally takes 50 minutes door to door took two hours. He was concerned until he realized he was missing a math test in his first period class. At one point we were going 2 mph. I spent far too much of my wee hours contemplating Exit 102 which seemed to be eternally 1 1/2 miles away. Finally, we passed an on ramp that was blockaded by three police cars. Hmmm, that can't be good. The last time I saw cops do that a tanker truck full of toxic liquid gas had flipped on I-23 and Frederick and I were stuck in traffic for 4 hours simply trying to turn around to head home. After that, things picked up ever so slightly and we nearly reached 5 mph. Ages later we passed three more police cars parked in a line which forced all drivers into the left most lane. Problematically, though, all this car shuttling and lane switching caused drivers to swerve madly, sent one into a ditch and another, to avoid that spiraling car, spun sideways and then continued to drive this way for about half a mile! It was a sight to behold--even Thomas roused himself from his stupor and watched in amazement. ("Why is he doing that?" he asked.) Once everyone got into the left lane and locked their tires in the cleared ruts, the excitement settled down and we were able to speed up to an astonishing 10 mph. This seemed very promising--the source of the traffic trouble MUST be getting closer! And suddenly there it was: a giant, double trailer semi was being escorted--two police cars in front, two in back--as it crawled in the rightmost lane, going the wrong direction. Yes, a semi truck was driving INTO traffic. As much as I hate those who stare at accidents, this was a sight that was difficult to avert ones eyes from. Once we did get past him, and were able to distribute ourselves back across two lanes, we were able to whiz along at 40 miles per hour. Finally I was rid of Thomas and had to get myself sorted to get to my class. Between Thomas's school and my school, I saw four cars stuck in ditches and another semi truck in serious trouble, this one half on the road, half in a parking lot, leaning precariously with the rear right wheels stuck in a ditch. Half my students did not make it to class, four of them who had car-pooled together had been thrown off the road into a snow drift when a semi drifted out of his lane into theirs. It was a silly and useless class after a long line of silly classes (last Monday's weather was similarly dramatic and again, only half the students were in class). After finishing with that, I headed back to pick up Thomas and to head home. Not feeling optimistic about matters, we barely left his school parking lot and found ourselves in bumper to bumper traffic. A one mile neighborhood road had a big vehicle blockage and no one was moving in either direction. Finally the clot cleared (I have no idea what the problem was) and we got moving, got on the freeway, got back to Flint only to find that our own street was closed because a mains pipe had burst. I was supposed to go to Ann Arbor with Frederick this evening, which would have logged on another 120 miles, but I refused. Over all a very stupid day.
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