The End of the Stormy Silence

Its done and gone now. The two big storms, which hit DC in a one-two wallop, have moved out to sea. I watched last night as those lovely, ever cheerful and somewhat silly forecasters on the Weather Channel said “bye-bye” to it like the infamous SNL flight attendant. They had even named it the February Fury. Bye bye February fury.

We are left now with mountains of snow. It took seven days for the plows to arrive in our little neighborhood, just as it did in most of the residential areas of metro DC. The first storm dumped 25 inches, and the second about 15. Once the trucks did come, they completely obliterated most of our sidewalk shoveling jobs, making huge peaks that are ten and fifteen feet high in some spots. It will take weeks and weeks for the snow in our yards to melt, as well.

I thought we would go crazy, being snowed in for so long. We were truly stuck in our houses for many days on end, able only to travel to our most immediate neighbors’ homes to say hi or hang out and eat junk food.

I thought we would go crazy the first time, and when the power went out I thought: this is not fun any more. When I could see my husband’s breath in the kitchen, I thought, this can’t last much longer.

It didn’t.

But I didn’t go crazy, either.

There was a lot of beauty in the storms.

For one thing, it was quiet. I mean really, truly quiet. The kind of quiet that you’ don’t often get to live inside of when you live inside of a city. The kind of quiet that enables you to hear the flakes touch down. The kind of quiet that offers you a chance to hear things before you see them, and lets your heart stop racing and your muscles relax. The kind of quiet that lets you think full, long thoughts, and drink them into your brain without interruption when you walk outside. The kind of quiet that nourishes you like good food.

When the roads were completely blocked and the plows couldn’t get anywhere near our house or even the surrounding main artery streets, there was a stillness that felt made it feel like we were swimming in a pool of white.

First of all, there was no tv. Phones kind of stopped, too. For a while we actually lost phone service on our land lines. But even when the service returned and the power went on, no one really called. They didn’t need to. What would they say? Yes, yes, we’re stuck too. After the first time you get that message, you just stop calling people. You go into wait mode. You don’t need to talk.

The helicopters stopped completely. I realized only then how much white noise they create in my daily life. The ever-present hum of traffic cams, hospital rescue flights, and even Camp David dignitary visits all add up to a lot of chopper noise, and they are loud. If M*A*S*H*’s Radar O’Reilly lived here, he’d go insane. You can even hear them inside, when you are tucked in behind double paned windows. (Once day a month ago I counted four, FOUR , helicopters within sight at one time while I was out in the backyard. I thought of the movie Grand Canyon.)

But once the heaviest snow kicked in, that all stopped completely. I felt as if I had been cured of a bad case of tinnitus.

The sirens, which are constant along the beltway and the big main roads nearby also stopped for about one day. (Sadly, these were the first to return once the snow stopped falling. Without back ground noise to cover their impact, each ambulance that wound its way around to the hospital could be heard clearly. Each one gave us a shudder. Thank God, we said to ourselves, none of us has to try to get out this mess in an ambulance. How could they get through the drifts? I fretted over friends with newborns and my elderly friends and neighbors; what if they needed medical care? )

The Capitol Beltway itself, which roars like a low, loud river in the distance where ever you go in this area, also stopped for about two days. No one drove anywhere, everything stopped, and no one went to work.

Even the train whistles on the Amtrak lines in Kensington – a sound which I really actually like – stopped.

The birds also went quiet, which I actually found eerie. On quick jaunts out with my snow-loving dog, I looked up at the trees and issued silent prayers, wondering where they and hoping that they had found good roosting spots while the flakes fell.

Those same birds have now returned in many mixed flocks. A huge murder of crows came to the park this morning with noisy abundance. Starlings, also, are back and in the trees. You can hear the chickadees, which I know are looking for nests this time of year, and about six or ten blue jays are also out and about, hunting in the ever greens for food and sounding like noisy, off-key flutists.

The mockingbirds greeted me noisily from the roof when I made my around in thirty six inches of snow to free up the red Ilex winterberries which had become buried in drifts. I had been watching from the kitchen as they had tried, unsuccessfully, to peck through the snow to get to that important food. I took pity and made the difficult trek to the remote spot in the garden. Within moments they descended and began to feast.

The beltway, the helicopters, the jet flights, the sirens, and all of the beep beep beeping of heavy equipment being used to clear snow can now be heard now when you step outside. You can hear the wheels of a big truck, as they spin out in frustration. I suspect our UPS truck driver is once again stuck down the street in his brown box truck.

The snow is turning grey, in those huge mountains. Smog, road gravel, salt… these are all accumulating in the packed up drifts on street corners. The melted stuff runs in slushy rivers towards the creek, and freezes up each night, making roads into skating rinks. The clean, crispness has worn off.

I wish I could keep it white and quiet for a while longer. I’m very glad to be plowed out, glad to be getting back to normal life, and glad that my day no longer resembles that of Ma in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s The Long Winter.

But I look over my photos of those first few hours after the snow stopped -- taken when the sun first came out and the sky was crystalline blue -- and mostly I remember the quiet silence, the peaceful cocoon of white which seemed clean and bright and free.

I wish I could capture that to keep in pictures, too.

Keeping the Sidewalks Clear Without Dirtying the Watershed

Well, the power is still on, for now. I have seen the lights flicker twice since this most recent storm started. We are expecting another 15 inches on top of the two and a half feet already out there. If the wind doesn't bring down the wires, I'm sure the weight of the snow on the branches will.

While the power holds, though, I’m damned glad to be doing something other than clearing snow away from the sidewalks, cars and roof. The last week has been a long blur, where every day we were working in some kind of snow mine. Dig, dig, and dig some more.

Digging is required by law in most places in Maryland, and generally speaking an important way to keep your neighbors happy. There are those that don’t shovel the walks in every neighborhood. I always wonder, what the hell are they thinking? And do they know what everyone else says about them for NOT shoveling?

(Of course, some can’t shovel due to health issues. I’m always glad to see my neighbors ban together and help out anyone who is in that situation. But then there are those that just never get AROUND to shoveling.... what the heck?)

Once the sidewalk is free of snow, you have to keep it free of ice, and that is when the *fun* really begins in Maryland, because we get that awful thaw-freeze situation after almost every storm. It never stays too cold for long here. We go above freezing after almost every storm, making every sidewalk a skating rink, and many streets a nightmare. When this happens, people inevitably turn to rock salt to melt the icy patches.

The problem is, salt is not really all that great for lots of reasons. For one thing, it can be a real pollution problem. I have been out with some of the Sligo water quality testing teams. They say that after a big storm you can see the problems caused by salt increases in the waterways. (Last year, for example, I followed Mike Smith out to sample and wrote about it for the Voice.)

Salt can also be very corrosive, and can kill the garden plants near your walk way. It can cause car trouble. It can cause roads and concrete to crack and break. It makes dogs limp and yelp in pain when it gets between their toe pads.

People also tend to over use salt. They dump a whole lot on the walk and then leave it there for weeks. It would be a lot less damaging, I think, if people used it to melt the ice and then swept up the leftovers once the ice has disappeared. This would save both money and the environment.

Sometimes, people turn to other products in an effort to melt the ice or at least provide traction on slippery spots.

Kitty litter is one of the most popular options. Although it does nothing to remove or reduce slippery patches, some think it can add traction. Years ago, I was told by an ecologist that using kitty litter on icy sidewalks as an alternative to salt was a bad idea, however, because it is often made from clay, which can cause sediment problems in local creeks. (You might think it stays on your walk, but at least some of it washes away in the stormwater.)

Kitty litter can also become an indoor pollutant; when tracked in on shoes it can be released as dust and very bad for those with asthma. According to some sources, kitty litter made of clay is also often strip mined, which means you might be saving yourself from falling at a huge cost to the planet.

The internet is also riddled with stories of kitty litter gone wrong; most of them end with someone saying something about how the kitty litter turned back into hardened clay after the snow melted, and caked up their tires and driveway and became an impossible mess.

Sand is often used on slippery sidewalks, and although it can give your shoes something to grip onto it will not melt the ice like salt. In fact, some cities put out big boxes of salt on the major street corners and invite pedestrians to be sort of vigilante about things; if someone walks along and finds a slippery spot, they just go to the box and help themselves to a scoop of sand.

The problem with sand is that it, too, can become an indoor pollutant. Once its tracked in on shoes it is almost impossible to remove from floors and rugs. And just like the sand at the beach, it is really hard to remove. It gets ground into hard wood and can cause a lot of damage quickly.

Maybe I’m being overly cautious here, but ever since my kids were little and we built a sandbox, I’ve also looked at construction sand with a wary eye, because all the play sand sold out there is labeled “Asbestos free!” This of course begs the question: some sand has asbestos???? Not really what I want tracked into my house. (You could, of course, buy a lot of play sand to use, but it is expensive and not so easy to find in winter.)

At one point people got desperate in Baltimore where I lived several years ago. A rock salt shortage during a year of big storms caused people to use things like fertilizer on the icy walks! Ugh! A pollution problem for sure.

The best solution, it seems, is to shovel diligently and as soon as possible after a storm. Get the walks clear and dry quickly. Shovel all the way to the edge of the walk so that as the snow melts the walk stays dry.

Okay, sure. But in a big storm like the one we just had, that is not always possible. You would have to be superhuman to get the walks completely clear and dry in my neighborhood right now. Everyone has made tiny passageways through the snowy walks. So ice formation seems inevitable once the melting begins.

And already this week I’ve seen a lot of weird stuff on the walkways, which I know is well-intentioned. Everyone's trying to keep the sidewalk safe. But at what cost to the creek, and the greater watershed? I wonder. Just like everything else that gets dumped on our sidewalks, whatever we put out will get washed to the creeks, the rivers, and eventually the Chesapeake Bay.

Perhaps the best answer is to shovel often, shovel well, and when you do use salt, do so sparingly.

If anyone else has better answers, I’d be glad to hear ‘em.

Careful What You Wish For

For my column in the Voice newspapers this month I wrote the following:

"I actually wish we would get a serious winter. I miss snow and cold temperatures, and I don’t like the thought that these lame-ass winters we’ve been experiencing the last few Decembers are the result of climate change...

And besides, more than anything else, I want some snow, damn it. Lots of it. Now. Blizzards and snowstorms, snowmen and sledding parties. Bring it, old man winter. Bring it. I am ready to play, ready to enjoy it, ready to count snow flakes and make snow angels, ready for cocoa and craziness. I long for snow the way thirsty people in the desert long for a drink of water. A long brown-gray winter without it is just that: boring, long and dreary. I want the beauty of a snow-filled sunrise where every branch of every tree is draped in white. One or two snowstorms a season just isn’t enough to satisfy this Marylander. I want a real winter. "

We are now under blizzard conditions (this a quote from the radio) with wind and fifteen inches of snow and more coming down each minute.

Perhaps next month I will write about how much I'd like a MILLION DOLLARS.

Meanwhile, WAHOO! I am going out to have some fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!