Israel Matzav

Let it snow!

There's snow predicted for Wednesday afternoon and Thursday with heavy accumulations, and with last winter's big storm still firmly in mind, the city has announced its intention to close the entrance roads into the city in order to keep the curiosity seekers out.

Speaking at a press conference from the municipality’s snow preparedness center, Nir Barkat said roads leading in and out of the capital would be blocked to traffic to prevent a repeat of 2013’s massive snowstorm, when hundreds of cars were trapped in drifts along main highways.

The police, said Barkat, “will block and will not allow traffic on the main roads, the entrance to the city, on the main arteries inside Jerusalem. This is to allow the plows and the security services to keep the roads open, primarily for saving lives.”

Barkat also asked Jerusalem residents to take responsibility for their own homes, and to be proactive in checking on their neighbors.

The snow situation room would be opened Tuesday evening, Barkat said.

He added that snowplows are ready and waiting to clear the roads, after which they will be reopened to traffic. There are 150 snowplows waiting to clear the capital’s roads, significantly more than the 90 that struggled to handle last year winter’s snowstorm.

The IDF Home Front Command urged residents to prepare water, dry goods, emergency flashlights and batteries, warm clothes and blankets, a radio with batteries, a fully charged cellphone and spare battery, and a generator, in addition to checking gutters and tree branches that could fall during the storm.

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Some forecasts predicted as much as two feet of snow (62 centimeters) for higher elevations in northern Israel and in the high-altitude Etzion Bloc, south of Jerusalem.

One thing the city ought to do is to order Hebrew U to close. Last year, the first storm hit on Thursday morning and the second storm hit on Friday afternoon and it took the university until Thursday afternoon to shut down, all the while penalizing students who couldn't make it to class.

Having grown up in Boston, I know how to drive in snow, but I won't drive on the unplowed streets of my neighborhood (last year, the plows showed up and turned back when a bunch of juvenile delinquents threw snowballs at them which had stones inside). What scares me the most is all the morons who have never driven in snow who suddenly consider themselves 'experts.'

Let's go to the videotape.

Labels: Jerusalem, snow

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:39 PM