A little over a year ago, I moved 230 miles south from Lincoln, NE to Wichita, KS. It’s not a huge distance. It can be traveled in just more than four hours by car. But it’s the difference between expecting regular snowfall during the winter and not. It’s the difference between experiencing accumulation and not.<\/p>\n
Wichita rarely gets snow–and when it does, it generally disappears within 24 hours. <\/p>\n
Except for the past two winters. Last year, Wichita had enough snow that they cancelled school for a week.<\/p>\n
At first, I, like a whole host of northerners, scoffed at what I considered to be unnecessary closures. But a year of living in Wichita has convinced me that a little snow in Southern climes really IS worth freaking out about.<\/p>\n
Do you doubt me?<\/p>\n
If you’re from Nebraska or South Dakota or Minnesota, you probably do. But let me make my case. <\/p>\n
You’ve heard some from the south talk about how their road maintenance crews are ill-equipped for any amount of snow. This is true in many places–Wichita has snowplows and salt stores, but many more southerly locations do not.<\/p>\n
But I feel that the reason a little snow is worth freaking out about has to do with another sort of resource: human resources.<\/p>\n
The fact is, southern drivers haven’t driven in snow. They don’t know what they should or shouldn’t be doing. They don’t have the knowledge or the experience to safely handle even small amounts of snow.<\/p>\n
In Nebraska, there were three types of unsafe winter drivers: the kids who’d never driven on ice before, the new SUV owners who were overconfident because of their vehicles, and the old women who were roadhogs.<\/p>\n
In Wichita, there is only one type of unsafe winter drivers: everyone.<\/p>\n
Because no one<\/i> knows how to drive in snow.<\/p>\n
This isn’t their fault. It’s not that they’re bad drivers (although many of them are, unfortunately). It’s just that they have neither the education nor the experience to drive in snow appropriately.<\/p>\n
They’re terrified, so they drive far more slowly than the weather merits. They can’t see well, so they drive far more closely together than is safe. They start sliding, so they slam on their brakes. They slide more and it’s slow-mo bumper cars.<\/p>\n
The few who do know how to drive in snow (maybe they moved down from Nebraska?) don’t have much recourse except to drive slowly but with adequate distance between cars. The roads are too clogged with slow-driving citizens to let them practice their safe-snow-driving skills.<\/p>\n
So what is a southern city to do?<\/p>\n
I recommend that they freak out.<\/p>\n
Close schools. Let people work from home. Only have essential employees come in. <\/p>\n
Keep people off the roads so that the only people on them are those who either have to be or who know how to safely drive on them.<\/p>\n
Short of transplanting every resident to a norther clime for a winter and having them practice driving with a native, I think that freaking out is the most reasonable option.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A little over a year ago, I moved 230 miles south from Lincoln, NE to Wichita, KS. It’s not a huge distance. It can be traveled in just more than four hours by car. But it’s the difference between expecting regular snowfall during the winter and not. It’s the difference between experiencing accumulation and not. … Read more Why a little snow in Southern climes is worth freaking out about<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12130"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12130"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12148,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12130\/revisions\/12148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}