The winter that would not leave edition

This past week, the Mid-Atlantic States and the East Coast got Pounded with up to three feet of snow.

Some are still digging out, others ask why?

The scene above is from this correspondent's residence. Officially, the station of record, (The airport in Moon Township) recorded 29.6 inches. Un-Officially, some of use had three foot. The biggest hit was in the City of Pittsburgh where seven days later, some streets have still not seen a snow plow.

The city is now in what they are calling an "All out Blitz," taking every piece of equipment they have into a neighborhood and clearing the streets. It's time consuming, labor intensive and quite frankly, they still have missed some streets.

Power is still out for several thousand people and the forecast for next week is more snow. How much is anyone's guess. The person taking the biggest hit is Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, the young mayor or as some would call him, "Mayor Opie."
See Luke who is separated from his wife was up in Seven Springs celebrating his birthday when the snow storm hit and it took him a day or so to get back to the city. During that time, the city DPW really took it on the chin. As former head of the DPW Guy Costa (who by the way revealed that he WAS told to resign or be fired as this correspondent has previously reported) anyway, Guy Costa said the department fell behind early and was never able to catch up.

Mayor Luke Skywalker kept promising that the roads would be plowed, but as this correspondent found out Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this past week, even main arteries were ice packed and in some cases impassable.

The problem is two fold. When you have the same party in control for 70 years or more, cronyism and political paybacks are the status quo in government. People who have been in the position for years and have the experience (Guy Costa) are on the sidelines replaced by others with little or no experience.

Second, the City and State declared an emergency. In that emergency, they should have prohibited all NON-ESSENTIAL travel and closed down the roads for the snow plows and salt trucks to have free rein to clear all the roads. This was done in 1993 and the roads were free of snow and ice within a day.
Instead, the roads were hazardous for almost a week. Common sense at some point should have come into play. Schools were closed, State Offices were closed, Shopping Malls were closed and granny doesn't need to run down to the Giant Eagle just to get another 12 pack of Charmin.

It has been reported by Marty Griffin of KDKA that on Sunday, some City of Pittsburgh Plow Drivers called off sick. The Stillers weren't even in the Superbowl! Doctor's excuses are now being filled out by these drivers to keep their jobs.
The City Council has formed a "task force" to look into why things did not work. Save your time and save your money. Things did not work because no one used common sense. The city didn't use common sense when tackling the problem, the citizens didn't use common sense when they went out on the road Saturday and Sunday and the Mayor and Governor didn't use common sense in handling the situation.

Snow Storm 1 Common sense 0