The Worst Is Yet To Come
So, after getting buried under about six feet of snow, another two to three feet fell in a band south of Buffalo. It is certainly annoying, but not as bad as the 1977 blizzard which affected more of state with constant white-out conditions that shut down most of the upstate [anything north of New York City].
People have forgotten that you have to acclimate to the cold before you start shoveling, because your body tends to send blood to your extremities in the cold and reduces the supply for your internal organs. You need to achieve a balance before you start anything as strenuous as clearing wet snow, or you risk a heart attack.
Unfortunately before the crews can load the snow into the trucks and dump it into the lake, it is going to warm up and start melting. This will probably cause local flooding and set the scene for the worst – snow falling on ice covered roads after the melting. In addition the piles of snow are going to have ice shells over them. The people who don’t manage to get the snow off their roofs are in line for major damage even if the roof doesn’t collapse under the additional weight.
Remember – no matter how bad things seem to be, they can always get worse…
11 comments
I was in upstate New York only once, for a couple of days, performing concerts in Buffalo and Albany. It wasn’t quite winter yet, so the snows were very ordinary; locals could walk in them just fine. Not me; I fell on my butt the first time I stepped out of doors! Buffalo at least has a thriving (classical) music community, but one really has to want to participate to put up with that much snow. I certainly feel for the folks going through it now… Houston has heavy rains now, but nothing worse than that.
The first big snow of the season is always a challenge as people have to remember how to deal with it, drive in it, walk in it, etc. That’s why there have been so many shoveling heart attacks.
People have the equipment to deal with it, but it takes time and coordinated effort. The problem is that they essentially had two major snow storms with almost no time between them, and then the temperature rose so it rained. Wet snow is the heaviest and the hardest to plow and shovel. The snowballs become iceballs when you compress them. Everything gets wet, which doesn’t happen when the snow is drier and colder.
Cleaning this up is going to be a PITA.
“Remember – no matter how bad things seem to be, they can always get worse…”
What a coincidence m8! Just when I thought I couldn’t be any more disgusted by Abbott and his insane government, guess what?!
here’s the latest petition I’ve signed:
We have over 60,000 signatures (not counting thousands of international signatures) so far. All the media are loving it, and the Gov is in the shit! Lib’s here in Vic are in a mad panic as there is a State election today (Sat.)!
When I signed, the comment i left was: ” I have an idea. let’s give the ADF a 5% / yr raise over 10 years + inflation increases & pay for it by taking 25% off the PM’s pay, and 15% off all other State/Fed politicians pay! Then send them to Iraq and see how they do! They obviously do nothing to deserve their outrageous pay and perks! Oh, let’s also do away with their massive pensions and give them to those who deserve them.”
I expect there to be at least 80,000 by Mon. 😀
I honestly cannot believe that even Abbott would be so incredibly stupid to do this! You think Americans love their servicemen/women? Nothing at all compared to Aussies! This may well be the final nail. I sure hope so! 🙂
You can follow it at The Daily Telegraph if you like:
A defence dad’s petition against defence pay and leave cuts attracts 24,000 signatures
This is standard practice for ‘conservatives’ – praise the military as you steal their pay and other benefits. The 1.5% pay offer I was aware of, but I didn’t know they intended to steal leave at the same time. That is unacceptable! I would have dealt with the cheap-ass pay raise, but there is no way in hell I would have put up with a loss of six days of leave. I assume that your Defence Forces have similar leave policy and 30 days/year. People think of 30 days as six weeks, but if I took a week off over Christmas it would have cost 7 days of leave, not the 4 days it would have cost a civilian. Holidays and weekends are not considered ‘normal days off’ in the military because you have to be ready for duty every day you aren’t on official leave.
Exactly Bryan. I knew you’d get it of course. Anyone who is a veteran and seen combat would get it! And the families sure have! I just voted, and I spoke to a few people at the voting place, and they were angry over that and the destruction of our health system. The ABC is already calling a Labor win here in Vic, and believe me, that was not the case a week ago! I love it when the stupid bastards shoot themselves in the face! LMAO
Victoria election 2014: Labor set to win government, new Galaxy poll shows
If the Federal Lib’s have any brains at all (that’s a joke), they will tell their retarded leader to STFU! LOL I see an early Fed. election looming. 😀
Aussies are a strange lot. We will take a lot of personal crap from elected morons, but you touch our men & women in uniform, and you are screwed! Only need to see our history to know that! 😀
They always do what their corporate masters tell them to do, and forget that corporations can’t vote. Announcing this just before a major state election was brain=dead. This was entirely too close to Remembrance Day for it to be good politics, much less policy. It is the centennial of the beginning of World War I and they pull this crap.
Yes, they are already having problems in the Senate, so the elections can’t be that far off. With the drop in commodity prices their budget projections just went up in smoke, and unemployment is raising. They keep digging the hole deeper and deeper.
I think there were 4 major factors, with the crap over military pay being the fourth latecomer. The others are job’s, health care and global warming. Abbott truly seems to think this is the USA. Aussies actually do believe in global warming and are concerned. You only have too see the green party votes in recent elections to know that. It looks like Greens will have at least 2 seats in the new parliament, including two of the most influential power blocks of Melbourne and Richmond. Anthony Green, an analyst with an enviable record, is calling Labor with 46-48 seats. 45 are needed to govern, and 48 would give them an unassailable majority. The greens won an a varied platform, but it included shutting down our three oldest and highest polluting coal fed power stations, and building renewable energy replacements. Which means less pollution, and lot’s of jobs. 🙂 It also means the the Lib’s biggest backers, the coal and mining industry, will feel the pain! 😀 win-win-win! 😀
Victoria election 2014: Labor to take back government, Antony Green says
Maybe its not so bad being an Aussie after all. 😉 We’ll see… Early day’s yet. 😉
Well, Napthine has conceded To Labor. But honestly, I am not at all sure that Daniel Andrews, who will be the new Labor Premier, will be all that much better. One of the things women were angry about was that Napthine secretly helped Geoff Shaw (a parliamentary Liberal Party member who was under a cloud and facing investigation) resign from the party but hold his seat as an ‘independent’ which of course everyone knew was a sham. The problem was that Shaw was a fundi Christian, especially anti-abortion. Napthine had voted against all changed to Vic abortion laws from 2008-2010. Then he (once again secretly) assisted Shaw to draft a Private Member’s Bill to change state abortion legislation in 2010. It was recently discovered that during September 2014 Napthine and Daniel Andrews told the Australian Christian Lobby that they would allow a private members bill to repeal section eight of the Victorian abortion laws. Section eight if removed would mean doctors are not required by law to refer a woman who wants an abortion to another doctor or perform the abortion even if they have a conscientious objection.
Another reason that Napthine lost was that he has been destroying the Ambulance service and making Paramedics jobs almost impossible. You couldn’t go past an Ambulance station without a sign saying something like “If you want better ambulance service, throw Napthine out!” etc. I guess people want a good Ambulance service. 😉 😀 Funny thing is, if the Gov hadn’t privatized the Ambulance service, they could have stopped them putting out the signs. But as ‘private citizens’, they can do what they like within the law. And ‘freedom of speech’ is stronger here than in the USA (where it’s now a joke). LOL
Ah well… Politics as usual, right? Care about minority special interest groups (if they have the money), and screw what the voters want!
At this stage Labor has 48 seats which is a majority overall in the chamber. I don’t think that’s actually a good thing, since they don’t have to deal with any other party, even the Greens. Would have preferred the Greens to have a say. *shrug*
Victoria election 2014: Labor takes back government, Denis Napthine concedes
The voters have had their say, now you have to wait to see if the parties have listened and understand what the problems are. At least you have the possibility of the smaller parties having relevance in your legislatures, while we are stuck with whatever crap the two parties in the US come up with, which precludes a lot for normal people as both cater to the corporations.
The falling commodity prices are really going to weaken the Coalition and their ‘vision’ of prosperity. Oil is already below $70/barrel; iron ore prices don’t look to recover in the near future; coal is a dying industry that refuses to admit it. They have no way to go except down.
Well, the counting is almost all done. ALP looks to have control with 48 seats, the coalition (Libs + Nationals) look to have 39, The Greens have their first ever seat, and an independent won (with a huge swing of 29%) the National Party’s safest seat of Shepparton they have held for almost 50 years! It was probably because the Coalition wouldn’t help out the big SPC cannery (who wanted $54 million to restructure, and even offered to pay it back over 10 years) there and it closed, costing many jobs in the region, and other issues. Basically, they want someone who will look after their issues, not kiss the Lib’s ass. 🙂
There are still a half dozen seats up for grabs, but ALP is in front for 3, Greens may pick up another, and another Independent may get one.
Just received an eMail update about the ADF pay dispute. I’ll post it if you are interested. 🙂 Basically, Abbot and his pack of morons have learned nothing from the Vic election. No surprise there. BTW, you could be forgiven as you read this for thinking Tony is talking about Republicans. You’ll see what I mean. 😉
(Bold mine).
The math is correct on the $247,000 which means that on average the ADF pays troops at a equal to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the US military, our highest paid officer. Not very realistic, but then this is the Abbott government which left reality behind almost as soon as it assumed office.
People are finally waking up to realize what they did in the last federal election. Between this result and the lack of support in the Senate, bad policies are taking their toll, so there is hope if the ALP doesn’t screw up like the US Democratic Party.