By Don
‘Frozen Chain’
courtesy of ‘LisaW123’
NBC Washington reminds us that fire hydrants are among the things that need to be dug out today. If you’re one of the many lucky folks who got the day off today courtesy of Uncle Sam, perhaps you could do 10 minutes of volunteer work with your shovel. It’s not entirely selfless – if your house catches on fire today you really don’t want to wait around while the FD moves some snow.
By Tom Bridge
”
courtesy of ‘Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie’
Not Full strength, mind you, as Metro Access is closed today except for medical trips for dialysis, etc, but buses and trains are all running today, to all stations. They dug out 106 miles of track below the 8″ mark to let trains pass safely, and thanks to the works of the DDOT Plows, the bus routes are clear enough for passage. Be safe out there.
By Ben H. Rome
‘Great Blizzard of ’09’
courtesy of ‘pixelmasseuse’
Snowpocalypse! Amazingly, several of our intrepid area photogs got out and about over the weekend and captured some fantastic shots of our area under nearly two feet of snow. (Yes, I’m jealous. A little.) So while most of us lounge around on our ‘enforced’ day off today, reminisce of our winter wonderland ‘event’ while sipping hot cocoa and listening to holiday music.
You don’t even have to go outside!
And if you have any snow photos from the weekend you want to share, make sure you drop them in our WeLoveDC Flickr pool!
By Ben H. Rome
‘National Geographic Terra Cotta Warriors – Eternal Faces – 11-18-09’
courtesy of ‘mosley.brian’
Some important information NatGeo wanted us to pass along:
Though the National Geographic Society and its employees will be closed Monday, the National Geographic Museum and its popular exhibition “Terra Cotta Warriors: Guardians of China’s First Emperor” will reopen to the public for regular operating hours from 10-6 p.m. Only ticket holders for Monday, Dec. 21 will be permitted during their designated time.
Exhibition tickets for Saturday, Dec. 19 will be automatically refunded minus the ticket-processing fee. Previously announced alternate viewing hours have been cancelled due to predicted icy road conditions in the evening. People interested in attending the exhibition at a later date should contact the ticket office by phone at 202.857.7700 so that further processing fees can be waived. Due to system limitations we are unable to waive fees for tickets re-purchased online. Continue reading
By Tom Bridge
”
courtesy of ‘Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie’
Tomorrow just got a whole lot more interesting. The Federal Government has announced that they’ve closed all agencies and offices tomorrow:
Federal agencies in the Washington, DC, area are closed. Nonemergency employees (including employees on pre-approved leave) will be granted excused absence for the number of hours they were scheduled to work. This does not apply to employees on leave without pay, leave without pay for military duty, workers’ compensation, suspension, or in another nonpay status.
Emergency employees are expected to report for work on time.
Employees on alternative work schedules are not entitled to another AWS day off in lieu of the workday on which the agency is closed.
So, enjoy your snow day, DC! It’s gonna be a good one.
Update 5:50pm: Arlington County has also closed offices and services for Monday.
Update 6:26pm: George Mason University will open at Noon
Update 6:46pm: Falls Church City Government will open at 10am
By Karl Johnson
‘NBC Logo’
courtesy of ‘alexa627’
Update 9:09AM: As of very recently, NBC Washington has taken DOWN this post in response. Thank you NBC for this first step. We anxiously await your written response as well. Thanks to everyone for your action.
As a DC area resident and WV native, I am outraged at the recent insulting and downright offensive “news” article from NBC Washington titled “West Virginia Discovers the Internet“. In this not even remotely humorous piece, Chris Needham mocks WV in over-the-top obnoxious terms for putting all of their vital public records online. In fact, WV is actually one of very few states in the country that also provide public access to images of these documents, making WV advanced in this case.
In this short little piece of commentary that NBC Washington has the nerve to pass off under the “news” heading on their website, Needham writes such utterly offensive crap as:
“…they have to poop in their backyard, running through the cold, fearing that the trap door on their red flannel pajamas should pop open early, exposing their nether regions to the bite of the winds…”
By Tom Bridge
The snow has stopped, and the sun has come out, and DC has started digging out from the Snowpocalypse. I know on our street, it was a ton of neighbors helping neighbors dig their cars out, and a lot of waving at the guys in the plow. DC is saying that all streets in the city will be plowed today, and to call 311 tonight if you’ve not had your street done yet. Transportation is gradually returning to normal, with 13 Metrobus routes running, and Circulator buses resuming partial service. How’d the city do this time out? Answer in the poll above, and tell us in the comments what worked and didn’t!
By Don
City Paper has a good writeup of the bringing a gun to a snowball fight situation, complete with pictures of the man with his pistol in his hand. Their photos come courtesy of matthewbradley and the full set can be found here. AJ Ashton also has pictures, his showing the first moments as the man got out of the car. In his pictures you can tell that the weapon was at that point still holstered or tucked into his waistband. Click through to get to the full-sized shot, where you can clearly see his hand on his weapon. The preceeding shot of him in the middle of stepping down from the car shows his hand over the weapon but not in quite the same position.
Without seeing it on video – certainly a possibility given the number of cameras around – it’s impossible to tell if this was just him adjusting the position of his weapon or making a deliberately threatening gesture. It’s hard to say whether that’s a holster or if he’s just shoved it in his waistband. If it’s the waistband… dude, I got two words for you: Plaxico Burress.
Threatening behavior or not, I still think it seems a little douche-y to behave the way he did. You can’t just roll down the window and holler at the revelers to stop throwing snowballs at cars? Pelting vehicles is indeed iffy behavior, and dangerous in already poor visibility conditions. Just maybe not iffy enough to justify armed confrontation…
By Tom Bridge
‘The Metro in winter’
courtesy of ‘afagen’
WMATA has announced they will not restart bus service or above-ground rail first thing in the morning, and will likely not resume service right away. There are a lot of factors at play here, including temperature and speed of plowing, but if I were a betting man, I’d say Bus service back on track by noon, and rail by 3pm. But, that’s entirely up to the good folks at Metro, so watch for more updates as they happen.
By Carl Weaver
What? You aren’t getting stir crazy? Cabin fever isn’t setting in yet? You must either be one of my friends in Bangkok keeping tabs on me or else you own a four-wheel drive. Me, I am just glad I have not yet been cooked and eaten by my Lovely Wife. We are starting to feel locked down, like the end may be near, and have openly admitted to kind of understanding the Donner Party a little better.
Here are 10 ways to keep the cabin fever from setting in:
What are you doing to distract yourself from cabin fever and thus cannibalism?
By Kirk
‘Harris Teeter bread isle’
courtesy of ‘wfyurasko’
We’ve been reporting since yesterday that, in light of the storm, stores have been running out of “essentials” like milk and bread. Now, I’m not from DC originally, I’m from Maine, but I’ve lived in the south for most of my life. It’s always perplexed me that citizens of non-snow prone states, at the first whispers of a substantial storm, immediately flock to their local grocery and buy up all the milk and bread. Why milk and bread? Why would you need more milk and challah buns during a snow storm than you would on any other day? Up north, people stock up on salt and snow shovels, and make sure they’ve got enough of the food they’d normally eat to last for a day or two. Can a southern reader please explain to me to logic behind the milk and bread craze?
‘mischief – it’s how i roll’
courtesy of ‘NCinDC’
The City Paper’s City Desk blog is reporting that during today’s snowball fight at 14th & U, some of the snowballers decided to target a maroon Hummer making its way down the street, only to have the driver get out, lose his shit, and start waving a gun around. Turns out, it’s a Metropolitan Police Department officer, possibly a detective. He didn’t identify himself before drawing his weapon, but did after additional police arrived, apparently summoned by a 911 call to report a man with a gun.
I can’t imagine why it is that police have such a problem with community relations, can you?
[Update from Don @ 5:45p] There’s some video of the crowd and the officers – the plainclothes who started the incident and the uni who showed up subsequently – here on WJLA’s website. Someone in the scene also has a video camera running so I’m sure this isn’t the last angle we’ll see on this. No coverage here of the initial alleged gun-waving but the way the plainclothes keeps walking up to get into the face of his accusers says something to me about his demeanor, and it’s not flattering.
Wonder if Chief Lanier will make a public statement condemning this behavior?
By Don
‘On Patrol…’
courtesy of ‘korona-pl (looking for inspiration…)’
If you’re home in or near Fairax and the keys to your 4WD are burning a hole in your pocket there might be a justification for you to venture out in this. INOVA Fairfax hospital might have a need for you and your vehicle to help some of their employees get to or from work.
If you call the hospital’s main number at 703-776-4001 and tell them you’ve got a 4WD and are willing to volunteer they will connect you to the right person. They’ll take your location and look to see if there’s any medical personnel near you who need a way to get to work. They may not need you at all or you might have an opportunity to do more than one run, if you so desire.
Please don’t just jump in the car – call and find out if you’re needed. The other way you can help emergency services is by staying off the roads unless you absolutely have to go out: keep clear and don’t potentially become someone who needs their help.
By Tom Bridge
‘Bolt Buses’
courtesy of ‘Mr. T in DC’
Via the Bolt Bus site, we’re seeing that bus service is drastically affected for tomorrow:
“Due to the approaching winter storm, we have decided to cancel the following services on Saturday, December 19, 2009:
Between New York & Washington all schedules are cancelled.
All service for December 20, 2009 has been cancelled.
Please continue to check our website for information concerning service on December 21, 2009.
We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause you.”
By Max
Soviet Safeway by maxedaperture
I have been hearing from friends that grocery stores in the area are fresh out of the basics: milk, bread, and toilet paper. Oh, and by “hearing”, I mean via photos on Flickr and Facebook updates – sorry, I forgot that nobody actually speaks to each other anymore. So I decided to go to my local grocery store to see how they’ve weathered the storm. My conclusion: the Soviet Safeway at 17th & Corcoran is stocked full of everything you need to survive.
How is your local grocery store doing? Tell us in the comments. Continue reading
By brownpau
Flying out of DC today? Probably not: according to the FAA, National Airport (DCA) is closed till tomorrow afternoon. Dulles (IAD) and BWI are experiencing gate, taxi, and arrival delays of “15 minutes or less,” but MWAA says most airlines have cancelled flights. Pretty much every local airport website is crawling right now, and BWI’s database server seems to have crashed. Check with your airlines, and look out there: a foot of snow so far and still coming down hard through till tomorrow? This is not good plane weather.
If you’re going out by rail, however, you’re in luck: IMGoph and Get There report that Amtrak is running just fine; though delays may intensify through the day. Getting to the station might be a problem, though, especially if you’re coming from an above-ground Metro stop.
(Thanks to America.gov for the photo.)
By Tom Bridge
Metro has just announced that they will discontinue above-ground rail service at 1pm today, until the snow has stopped. That will close 39 stations until the snowfall has been managed.
In addition: Metrobus and Metro Access will stop running at 1:30pm.
The reason for the closures at 8″ of snow is that if the third-rail is covered, it can no longer transmit the necessary running power for the trains, meaning you could get stranded by the snow. Once they’ve cleared up the snow, they’ll return to normal service, but I’d expect that to be tomorrow at the very earliest. You can read more about Metro’s snow policies on their site.
Steven Taubenkibel of Metro has just said that road conditions are far too treacherous to continue service. For the remainder of the day, they’ll run empty deicer trains on the above-ground tracks, so you may still see trains on the tracks, but there will be no service there. They are emphasizing safety, asking people to stay off the roads so they can be cleared for service.
By Katie
‘Snowball fight’
courtesy of ‘takenbyjillian’
So you woke up this morning all “AHHHHH SNOMAGEDDON, SNOWPOCOLYPSE, SNOWMAIGAWD, THUNDERSNOW2009! HOLY CRAP!” and about an hour later that wore off and now you’re all like, “SNOW BORED.” So if you’re like me, you can’t sit still for that long, the snowstorm is wrecking your epic weekend plans, and you’re antsy. Well, never fear, there are some snow activities still kicking in the DC area.
First, may I recommend the Brightest Young Things snowball fight happening this afternoon at 2 p.m. at 14th and U? Be there. Armed and ready! In Clarendon, the Capital Weather Gang is hosting a snow happy hour at Liberty Tavern where they’re having their regular happy hour specials from 2-5 p.m. Pete’s A Pizza in Columbia heights is having a half-priced bottle of wine with purchase of any pie special. And of course, sledding! Cathy has you covered with recommendations.
The other great thing to do? Get out there and take pictures! And then submit them to the We Love DC pool on flickr, (We’ll be sure to do a big photo feature on them! You know you want yours included!) and add them to the comments of Karl’s snow post for some real-time snow lovin’.
By Tom Bridge
‘Rural Letter Carrier in Sleigh’
courtesy of ‘Smithsonian Institution’
You read that right. It’s a big storm when even the Smithsonian shutters their doors for a couple days. According to their website:
“Due to the heavy snow, all Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo will be closed to the public today, Saturday, Dec. 19 and tomorrow, Sunday, Dec. 20.”
The last time we think that happened was in 1996, which certainly puts this storm in the historic category.
By Ben H. Rome
‘DSC_3450’
courtesy of ‘Ghost_Bear’
We received this from Ford’s Theatre regarding today’s performances of “A Christmas Carol“:
Ford’s Theatre has canceled both performances of “A Christmas Carol” for Saturday, December 19, 2009. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused by this change, but we felt it to be in the best interest of our patrons and staff. A decision regarding Sunday’s performances will be announced tomorrow.
Patrons who purchased through our authorized ticket distributor, Ticketmaster, will be contacted early next week concerning their refund. Patrons who purchased directly through Ford’s Theatre will be contacted by Ford’s Theatre; if they have not heard from Ford’s Theatre by Monday morning, they should contact the Ford’s Theatre Box Office at (202) 347-4833. For tickets purchased through any other outlet, patrons should contact that vendor directly.
By