Snow! Uh-Oh

I have lived in North Carolina my entire life and I will be the first to admit that us natives go a little crazy when we have winter weather. Of course we should be use to it as we have had some form of severe winter weather at least once each year since 1996. But yesterday was just crazy. We had flurries turn into about 1/2" accumulation. Okay, we can handle that, and it was a dry snow. Yet it turned into the biggest fiasco traffic-wise I have ever witnessed.

The schools; private, public and daycares all 'released' their students at the same time, right when it was snowing "the hardest." The roads clogged with traffic and turned that small amount of dry snow into a layer of ice across the roads. Last night we watched the late news and saw people stuck in their cars in traffic at 11:00 at night, many of whom had left work around 2:00 in the afternoon. Buses from the schools were stuck or in accidents an couldn't get the kids home from school. On the news they said that nearly 3,000 students would be spening the night at schools, yet at that time they were not going to make the call on whether to close or delay school for the next day. Can you say incompetence.

The blame for this is falling right on the public school systems. They had been told by the weather service that the snow would stop falling quickly, yet they couldn't wait for that to happen. Instead they ended up getting the buses and parents (not to mention the teenage drivers) out onto untreated roads. If they had waited on more hour DOT would have been able to get out and salt/sand the roads. As it was the DOT trucks were stuck in the same traffic and could not get around all the stuck vehicles.

After seeing all that I gave my blessings that I stay home with the girls and that DH works south of us, so he was able to get home with no problems.

Today we are going to have a nice slow day, my southern nod to the weather. MB's preschool and my bible study have both been canceled today so we do not have to rush out anywhere. MB has already put on her snow clothes and is outside having morning playtime. When she comes back inside we will drink some hot chocolate and read some of the books we got from the library earlier this week. Numeracy is definitely on the list as I have seen MB definitely showing some signs that she is grasping large numbers, a concept we have hinted at but not done a lot of work. I also want to spend some time on letter recognition with Kate while also reviewing letter sounds with MB. If we get all this accomplished this morning without too much arguing and sidetracking, I have told MB that she can watch Brother Bear this afternoon during quiet time.


Have a blessed day!

Amy