The Washington, D.C. Blizzard of 2016

Snow comes to D.C.

I'm sure you didn't hear about it on the news, but a "monster blizzard" descended upon the East Coast this weekend. D.C. couldn't stop talking about "Winter Storm Jonas" (because we name these things now, apparently) in the days leading up to its arrival; promises of two feet (or more) of snow will have that effect on a quasi-southern city such as D.C. As a Midwestern transplant, I was a bit more relaxed. I have seen both sides of snow: in my Cincinnati life, I experienced snow overhype and subsequent disappointment far more frequently than actual snowstorms; in my Michigan life, I endured significant snowfalls but with the same sort of stoic, nonchalant attitude about them as the rest of the state. Having spent more years in the former snow regime than the latter, I was more inclined to believe that Jonas would come to naught. Boy was I wrong. Here follows my narrative, recorded partly for posterity--but what isn't?--of the Washington, D.C. Blizzard of 2016. All photos, except that of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, are my own; you can find them all here, or on Facebook.

On Friday afternoon, my place of work shut down, in keeping with the Office of Personal Management's declaration that the government itself would do the same. (Though I do not work for the government, my workplace mirrors its closure decisions.) As I walked from my building to the nearest Metro station--all of which would close for the duration of Saturday and Sunday--I spotted not a single snowflake on the ground or in the air, nor did I on my walk back to my abode. Deciding to take the warnings somewhat seriously, and wishing to see the chaos the impending snowstorm had inflicted, I had resolved to go grocery shopping after work, but assumed I would have time, as the city did not expect snow until the evening. Looking out a window around 2 p.m., however, I saw that the snow had begun, so I rushed outside into the just-beginning snow.

A scene of utter chaos greeted me at the grocery store. Well, not quite "utter," but it was certainly chaotic. Checkout lines stretched through aisles all the way to the back of the store. Basic items--lettuce, spinach, sliced bread, bottled water--had vanished. And random items--pasta, sugar--had spilled into those same aisles, with no one, customer or employee, making any effort to do anything about them. All rushed headlong merely to procure the items that would have to last them until their next trip to the store--and who then could possibly know how long that could be? Better to get five bags of sliced bread instead of one. I barely made it out alive of this scene of capitalism at its worst. Well, actually, it wasn't really capitalism at its worst (though it did make me wonder what this city would be like in an actual emergency). And I didn't have any trouble getting out of there alive. But it sure sounds better to write it that way, doesn't it? I've had the same experience of unnecessary desperation at the grocery store many times in Cincinnati, though there made doubly unnecessary by the frequent failure of snow actually to appear the next day.

But the walk back to my house quickly proved that the snow would not be so coy this time. By the time I returned to my house, I had to shake heavy snow off my jacket. Seeing only more piles falling from the sky, I settled in for a nice evening of relative inactivity, checking occasionally to see more and more snow settle upon the ground. I watched two movies (Attack the Block and Labyrinth, of which I shall write more hence), caught up on some writing and reading, and waited. When I went to bed, it was still snowing. And so it continued to snow when I awoke Saturday. Well near a foot had probably fallen while I sought refuge from the cold in dreams. And it showed no signs of slowing down. Peeks out of the windows and front door of my house revealed sidewalks almost completely unshoveled, and that the street on which my house sits was in even worse condition. Effectively trapped in my own abode, lacking the proper equipment to mess around in the snow, and having mostly lost my childhood inclination to do so, I, again, had to content myself with interior activity. More movies (Altered States and The LEGO Movie, about the former of which I shall certainly write at least), more reading, more writing, and more waiting followed. At the end of the night, with the snow finally having stopped, I ventured outside in shorts, sandals, and T-Shirt, just to see what it was like; it was not very cold, but the roads and sidewalks were not in any better condition. Perhaps by the next morning things will have improved.

Pictured: My street.

They had not; or, at least, not by much, as my post-snowfall Capitol Hill-area wanderings revealed. The sidewalks in the vicinity were about half clear, half unplowed; the roads were at roughly the same ratio.

The front of my house.

Snowdrifts much higher than the two or so feet we had actually gotten had piled up along the roads, the ironic result of snowplows doing their duty, covering up many cars in the process.

Well at least whoever this was could open the door.

Many roads remained essentially impassable. The areas in front of the Supreme Court and the Capitol Building were clear, but something tells me they were a priority.

The Supreme Court.

The Capitol Building

As I wandered past these two buildings, each still frosted with snow despite the best efforts of their caretakers, I began to see people trudging to and fro with sleds. I knew what they were up to. A recent act of Congress had opened up the previously illegal (!) slope in front of the Capitol. So there I wandered, to behold a joyous scene upon arrival. Sledders of all ages populated the not-at-all-that-impressive slope (it had nothing on Symmes Park or Harbin Park). The surface was worn down smooth; I had to be very careful climbing to the launching point, where sledders had scattered behind them the refuse of broken sleds. And here I realized that probably not even half of these sledders had actual sleds. Instead, these snow neophyes were using whatever they could get their hands on: garbage can lids, cardboard boxes, placards from Friday's March for Life, plastic bags. Standing and watching these cold novices sled greatly amused the Midwesterner in me, and made me recall those childhood winters in which I careened carelessly through snowy woods on sleds with my neighbors. 

After this, I walked over to my local church, which was, fortunately, open, though sparsely-attended. I learned during Mass that every other church on Capitol Hill had closed, which doubles my fortune, as I had not even bothered to check if mine would be open.

St. Peter's on Capitol Hill, which stayed open.

I took a circuitous route back to my abode, at times deliberately wandering through completely-unplowed parking lots, just to see how much snow we ended up with. The snow went up to my knees; I'm asymptotically-approaching 6 feet tall. Walking through it made me feel like Rocky Balboa in the Soviet Union.

Rocky IV up in here.

I think it's the most snow I've ever seen fallen in such a short amount of time; though I regularly endured more snow in Michigan, it was the result of weeks of accumulation when the temperature stubbornly stayed below freezing. When I returned, I confirmed what I had already suspected: the federal government had closed tomorrow (i.e., today), so I would not have to come into the office. Adult snow days are real. I spent much of today working anyway, for nothing can quite match a childhood snow day.

So what have I learned from all of this? Some things, I suppose. I learned that people will freak out over snowhype in many places, regardless of whether it actually snows. I learned that sometimes, when it comes to snow, the hype is real, but apparently you have to leave Cincinnati to experience it (my family and friends there reported that Jonas somehow missed them entirely). I learned that, when you can't leave your house, movies and books are your best friends. I learned that, if you're creative or desperate enough, anything can become a sled. I learned that D.C. is not very good at dealing with snow. And I learned that a snowstorm that centers on the East Coast automatically becomes more important and significant than the dozens of snowstorms that those in places where they strike regularly stoically and quietly survive every year without having to trend three different hashtags about the snow or to make every news report about them. They're the real heroes of winter, because they deal with it without having to make it all about them. Would that we all could endure snow as patiently as they. Although there were some people in D.C. who acted like that: the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

As D.C. cleans up and returns to normal over the next few days, I hope we take these guards, and not the hysteric shoppers I encountered on Friday, as our models.