This ain't November 11th, 1987.

[acroyear]

The feds are a bunch of wussies.

Intellicast.com:

November 11, 1987 -

a Veteran's Day snowstorm dumped record early snows over the mid-Atlantic with 17 inches at Washington, D.C. This amount of snow is rare in winter let alone the middle of fall. Thunder and lightning accompanied the snow for several hours

The thing was, it was supposed to have stopped snowing by 8am.  Every weatherman (and I mean EVERY) said it would stop. Every school system did an late opening to keep an eye on it.

Except Fairfax.

The snow didn't stop.  It got worse.

Every school system called the day off.

Except Fairfax.

Which had to scrounge to get the busses through the 11 inches that had piled up in less than 3 hours to get the kids out 2 hours (or more) early.

People leaving the Pentagon at noon weren't getting to Kings Park West until 9pm.  I know - I was out there pushing their cars past my house.

So to close early on THIS crap?

sheesh...

Comments

You just triggered a flashback...

[greendalek.livejournal.com]

Do I ever remember THAT day. (Lake Braddock alum, here.)

Re: You just triggered a flashback...

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

Robinson here '88 - the biggest class in VA history!

...well, 'til Braddock '89...

jerks.

Re: You just triggered a flashback...

[eac.livejournal.com]

Me, too. I had an interview with a William and Mary Alumnus that day. And found out that my grandmother was terminally ill.

(Needless to say, after spending all afternoon stuck on a bus in the snow, and crying about my grandmother, the interview didn't go well...)

(Chantilly, '88)

Re: You just triggered a flashback...

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

yeah, but had it not been, we might not have met...

i'll stick to looking at the bright side, m'kay? :)

Re: You just triggered a flashback...

[eac.livejournal.com]

Oh, let me assure you -- I may have hated that day, but I don't regret JMU or the vaxnerds even slightly.

[thatwasjen]

Apples and oranges, I think. That was snow, and it was early in the season.

This is ice/mixed precipitation, and it's been, unusually, below freezing for many consecutive days.

[blueeowyn.livejournal.com]

I remember that. I went to Latin class and we ended up having a snowball fight in the classroom with the snow on our jackets. Even the professor played some. By the time we got out of class, the snow on the clothes had melted and we were damp. So, I tromped across campus to my next class in the 2nd warmest building on campus and walked to class (it took about 7 minutes after entering the building to get to the room), fully thawed to find a note on the board that campus closed. So, I walked to the easiest cut-through for work (getting fully covered in snow AGAIN), walked to the office to find it closed (big surprise), then out into the snow to get to where Mom worked. We never made it home that night (which meant that studying for my Calc test the next morning was challenging).

The thing is, SNOW you can drive in (albeit slowly) as long as the car clears the snow. Ice/Freezing Rain/etc. is a whole nuther issue. Heck, I was skating a bit going to my 10:00 meeting this morning and by the time I left, I really wanted ice-skates to get to the car.

The heavy snow circa Nov. 2000 was much more obnoxious ... I didn't have a shovel and it was to my thighs in my new house. Ugh However, I could walk in/on it and I could drive on it. Up here, has been a skating rink most of the day and I can tell you from painful experience that rain on ice has no traction and there is nothing you can do to get anywhere in it.

[dave-lister.livejournal.com]

Welcome to the era of liability.

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

My coach style commuter bus was fishtailing like mad, and almost didn't make it up a hill. It's heavier than school buses, and the driver is more professional. This was the 2:45 bus, which didn't arrive at WFC until 3:05, still normal afternoon bus time for some schools. This is not mild weather, even if, when we were kids we did walk ten miles to and from school up hill both ways with only old rags for shoes.

I missed being in school for that snowstorm by a tiny bit, alas. Although it sounds like one I was stuck at tysons corner mall for. The thunder and lightning was one of those things that sticks with you. Lewis Black has a great routine about thundersnow.