Today? It's relatively warm--in the upper 40s--and what little snow there is on the ground can be found in smallish mounds at the edges of parking lots or against garage walls.
Showing posts with label Snowmageddon 2011. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Snowmageddon 2011. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
One Year Ago Today
Chicago was buried under nearly two feet of snow.
Today? It's relatively warm--in the upper 40s--and what little snow there is on the ground can be found in smallish mounds at the edges of parking lots or against garage walls.
Today? It's relatively warm--in the upper 40s--and what little snow there is on the ground can be found in smallish mounds at the edges of parking lots or against garage walls.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Snowmageddon 2011: Aftermath
After the snow subsided and the winds calmed down, cold air slid its hand over the city and squeezed hard, ensuring that the tall piles at every corner and narrow paths temporarily standing in for sidewalks would be around for a while.
To be fair, most sidewalks in my neighborhood were passable after a couple of days, with the notable exception of one stretch alongside a yellow-brick warehouse that, apparently, contains zero shovels, turning a walk along its side into something more like flying through one of the canyons on the Death Star--treacherous and nothing even remotely resembling fun.
During this time, the city lopped a couple of tenths of an inch off of the official storm total, which downgraded it to an even 20 inches and fourth place on our all-time blizzard list. (At the same time, the Blizzard of 1979, which shut down Chicago Public Scolls for a week--I was a high school freshman at the time--and chased mayor Michael Bilandic out of office a few weeks later, was upgraded slightly. Don't ask me how you remeasure a 32-year-old snowstorm--I couldn't tell you.)
Also during this time, the city finally wearied of citizen marking their parking spaces with lawn chairs, storage containers and baby carriages long after the flakes had stopped falling. trucks were sent up and down residential streets, gathering the markers and carting them away.( And rightly so--I abhor the practice to begin with, but keeping the markers out there two weeks after the fact is seriously overly territorial.)
Finally, after about a week or so, temperature rose first above freezing, then above normal, then way above normal, topping out last Thursday at an official high of 58 (a few degrees shy of the record high for the day) and unofficial highs exceeding 60 degrees in some areas. This went a long way toward melting what remained from the storm, reducing the mounds the height of my head to little more than smallish blackened Rorschach tests of the pavement.
Is that the end of the story? Of course not. It snowed last night. It snowed this morning. It can snow here well into April and even early May.Winter's not done with us yet--even if we were done with it some time ago.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Snowmageddon 2011: More Dibs
More of the crap Chicago drivers are using to illegally mark the parking spaces they dig out. 
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Snowmageddon 2011: Dibs
As just about everyone knows, I'm a big fan of tradition, especially cherished Chicago traditions. Eating Fannie May candies? Gimme some. Watching Hardrock, Coco and Joe at Christmastime? All for it. Marshal Field's? Wish it weren't Macy's now, but we can still stare at the holiday displays, right?
One Chicago tradition I can't hold, however, is "Dibs."
"Dibs," for the uninitiated, is a dubious custom that crops up every winter once a snow worth shoveling has fallen. Drivers dig out their cars and mark the spaces for themselves with whatever they can find around the house. Usually, chairs (either kitchen or patio, it matters not), but it could be just about anything that won't blow away in the stiff winter breeze. I've seen everything from vacuum cleaners to bags of cat litter thrown out in the streets to protect parking spots.
(I must mention that, as Svengoolie--a.k.a. Rich Koz--correctly points out on his blog this morning, nobody in Chicago really calls this practice "Dibs"; the term is a relatively recent media invention. For the purposes of this and future blog entries on the subject, "Dibs" it will be.)
There are many reasons I despise this "tradition," like:
1. All those chairs, milk crates, traffic cones, etc. make our streets look garbage-strewn and cluttered, like we don't give a shit how our city looks.
2. Parking spaces on public streets don't belong to individual homeowners or renters--they're property of the city. They don't suddenly become private property once the snow starts falling.
3. There's an implied threat behind those lawn chairs and chaise lounges: "Fuck with my space, and I'll fuck with you." We've all heard the stories of what happens when someone parks a car in a space that someone else cleaned out--everything from keying the finish to reburial via snowblower to having a hose turned on it and caking it under inches of ice. I've never seen any of these things done, but just knowing somebody could get so worked up that they'd bash your windshield in with a sledgehammer just because you moved their "dibs" marker out of the way and parked in "their" space is enough to keep most drivers searching for an unmarked spot.
4. Not all drivers wait until we have a major event like Snwomageddon 2011 to start marking their territory. I've seen "Dibs" called as early as the first flurries in November, when there's nothing to dig out.
5. It's illegal. Not that the city has the will to enforce the law, especially with a mayoral election just a few days away.
Much as I loathe "Dibs," though, the practice does make for, um, interesting photography.
One Chicago tradition I can't hold, however, is "Dibs."
"Dibs," for the uninitiated, is a dubious custom that crops up every winter once a snow worth shoveling has fallen. Drivers dig out their cars and mark the spaces for themselves with whatever they can find around the house. Usually, chairs (either kitchen or patio, it matters not), but it could be just about anything that won't blow away in the stiff winter breeze. I've seen everything from vacuum cleaners to bags of cat litter thrown out in the streets to protect parking spots.
(I must mention that, as Svengoolie--a.k.a. Rich Koz--correctly points out on his blog this morning, nobody in Chicago really calls this practice "Dibs"; the term is a relatively recent media invention. For the purposes of this and future blog entries on the subject, "Dibs" it will be.)
There are many reasons I despise this "tradition," like:
1. All those chairs, milk crates, traffic cones, etc. make our streets look garbage-strewn and cluttered, like we don't give a shit how our city looks.
2. Parking spaces on public streets don't belong to individual homeowners or renters--they're property of the city. They don't suddenly become private property once the snow starts falling.
3. There's an implied threat behind those lawn chairs and chaise lounges: "Fuck with my space, and I'll fuck with you." We've all heard the stories of what happens when someone parks a car in a space that someone else cleaned out--everything from keying the finish to reburial via snowblower to having a hose turned on it and caking it under inches of ice. I've never seen any of these things done, but just knowing somebody could get so worked up that they'd bash your windshield in with a sledgehammer just because you moved their "dibs" marker out of the way and parked in "their" space is enough to keep most drivers searching for an unmarked spot.
4. Not all drivers wait until we have a major event like Snwomageddon 2011 to start marking their territory. I've seen "Dibs" called as early as the first flurries in November, when there's nothing to dig out.
5. It's illegal. Not that the city has the will to enforce the law, especially with a mayoral election just a few days away.
Much as I loathe "Dibs," though, the practice does make for, um, interesting photography.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Snowmageddon 2011: Troy Street
Most side streets in the neighborhood were more or less passable to varying degrees after Snowmageddon 2011 had ended, with many being cleared by neighbors who took up shovels and snowblowers and did for themselves what they knew the city wouldn't get around to until at least Thursday morning, if even then.
Not Troy Street. It had some foot prints, but no tire tracks could be seen in the knee-deep (and, in some places, waist-deep) snow.
Not Troy Street. It had some foot prints, but no tire tracks could be seen in the knee-deep (and, in some places, waist-deep) snow.
Snowmageddon 2011: The Morning After
Some random images from around the neighborhood taken after the storm had passed.
Snowmageddon 2011: The Drift at the Door
The front door of my apartment building was snow splattered, but passable. The back door, which opens onto a gangway that leads to the alley? Not so much.
This is the doorway at around 9 p.m.
This is the doorway just after midnight.
And this is the doorway around noon on Wednesday. The final measurement: 34 inches (or just under three feet) of snow.
Here is the gangway itself. Not too long after this shot was taken, some enterprising soul got out a shovel and dug a path out to the alley. The end of the gangway leading to the street, however, remained completely snowed in.
This is the doorway at around 9 p.m.
This is the doorway just after midnight.
And this is the doorway around noon on Wednesday. The final measurement: 34 inches (or just under three feet) of snow.
Here is the gangway itself. Not too long after this shot was taken, some enterprising soul got out a shovel and dug a path out to the alley. The end of the gangway leading to the street, however, remained completely snowed in.
Snowmageddon 2011: Home Again, Home Again
Back on the block of La Casa del Terror, snow drifts were already piling high--this one, at the alley behind my building, was already around three feet high, and the storm wasn't even at its full fury yet.
Even though the wind was blowing out of the northeast at a steady 30 miles per hour (with recorded gusts up to 70 mph), my front door and windows were spray-painted with snow.
Olivia usually ignores the weather unless there's a bad thunderstorm, in which case she'll run and hide (an unfortunate habit she picked up from Ms. Christopher). On this occasion, though, she sat fascinated at the window as the drifts built, the winds swirled and the trees swayed in the gale.
When the thundersnow arrived sometime after ten--right around the time that I got a text telling me that my workplace would be closed Wednesday (snow day!)--Li'l Ms. O stopped feeling fascination and ran for cover.
Snowmageddon 2011: The Ride Home
When I finally was let go from work sometime after 7 p.m., the blizzard was in full swing. Most of downtown had emptied out, which would explain why there were so few cars on unplowed Dearborn Street when I left.
The streets weren't entirely deserted, though--under the Loop elevated tracks at Wabash and Madison, I found a man playing his accordion. He's out there most days, collecting change from passers-by, but how many people were passing him on a night like this. As he gamely slogged through a rendition of "Puff the Magic Dragon," I pulled out a fiver and moved to toss it into his carrying case, then realized that I couldn't--the case was filled with snow. He stuck out his hand and took the bill. "Take care of yourself, man," I said as I turned the corner and headed for the train.
The train ride was surprisingly uneventful. The Brown Line was still running smoothly, and I was back in my neighborhood in what, on a normal day, would be an average travel time. Once I was off the train, though, the adventure really began.
The ramp that leads from my train stop is covered with a lovely mosaic--not the most practical design feature in the best of conditions, but downright treacherous on a night like this. Once I made it down the ramp, I found most of the sidewalks impassable--many had substantial drifts already--so I wound up walking in the street.
Ordinarily, this would be a dangerous proposition--Chicago drivers have no love of pedestrians, and vice versa. However, the few cars that were still out there were moving very slowly--maybe five miles per hour at best--and the wind was at my back, so I just needed to walk in the tire tracks, watch my step and hope for the best.
You could tell that a snowplow had been through recently on the eastbound lanes of Montrose Avenue, but the westbound lanes were thoroughly covered, and except for a lone set of headlights in the distance looking east, there were no moving vehicles in sight. I probably could have stood there snapping pictures for hours without risk of getting hit.
If you're wondering what it was like to be standing out there, this photo tells you pretty much all you need to know.
I stayed upright. I got home. I stayed safe.
Hope you did, too.
The streets weren't entirely deserted, though--under the Loop elevated tracks at Wabash and Madison, I found a man playing his accordion. He's out there most days, collecting change from passers-by, but how many people were passing him on a night like this. As he gamely slogged through a rendition of "Puff the Magic Dragon," I pulled out a fiver and moved to toss it into his carrying case, then realized that I couldn't--the case was filled with snow. He stuck out his hand and took the bill. "Take care of yourself, man," I said as I turned the corner and headed for the train.
The train ride was surprisingly uneventful. The Brown Line was still running smoothly, and I was back in my neighborhood in what, on a normal day, would be an average travel time. Once I was off the train, though, the adventure really began.
The ramp that leads from my train stop is covered with a lovely mosaic--not the most practical design feature in the best of conditions, but downright treacherous on a night like this. Once I made it down the ramp, I found most of the sidewalks impassable--many had substantial drifts already--so I wound up walking in the street.
Ordinarily, this would be a dangerous proposition--Chicago drivers have no love of pedestrians, and vice versa. However, the few cars that were still out there were moving very slowly--maybe five miles per hour at best--and the wind was at my back, so I just needed to walk in the tire tracks, watch my step and hope for the best.
You could tell that a snowplow had been through recently on the eastbound lanes of Montrose Avenue, but the westbound lanes were thoroughly covered, and except for a lone set of headlights in the distance looking east, there were no moving vehicles in sight. I probably could have stood there snapping pictures for hours without risk of getting hit.
If you're wondering what it was like to be standing out there, this photo tells you pretty much all you need to know.
I stayed upright. I got home. I stayed safe.
Hope you did, too.
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