Wow, I have been reading this all day, off and on, and I just can’t believe the rudeness of some of the commenters. First of all, when you make an intentionally rude comment (Lisa, for instance), someone is going to call you on it. Secondly, if you are going to comment that “where I came from” handles snow/ice/traffic/schools/sports or whatever better than St Louis, someone is going to remark that if you preferred it there, then perhaps you should return. Don’t be rude and expect that there will not be a response. That type of comment is designed to provoke a reaction, so take it.

As for the decision to call school: we have had some excellent viewpoints here from teachers and others involved in the decision-making process. Recently, everyone was upset that the St Louis public school district did not close school based on a drive around North St Louis at 4:30 am, as reported by the Post-Dispatch. They do the best they can. My children go to a private elementary school, and we have a significant commute. Last week, I discussed snow days with our principal. Her comment? Safety first. We will support any decision you make. It seems that if your children ride the bus, the choice is still yours: is the bus safe today? In two or three or seven hours, will I still feel that my children will be safe on their way home?

Would you rather be stuck at home for the next few days and deal with make-up work, or become well-aquainted with the area hospital waiting rooms?

I think most of the comments here have been well-considered, and contributed to a (mostly) lively, congenial debate. I grew up in Massachusetts. We had some snow and ice there on occasion. We also had hills, which complicate matters, just like they do here–it isn’t flat. Even if the towns had thousands of fabulous snow plows and mountains of ice melt–which we did when I was growing up in the 80’s–they don’t any longer. Budget cuts took care of the excess and snow plows were sold or not maintained. So all of the snide comments about being from somewhere else that is better don’t really fly, because municipalities are functioning on bare-bones budgets everywhere.

Please, enjoy your snow day. Say a little prayer for the woman who buried her father yesterday. Be very, very careful during your drive home, which is now extremely treacherous. The snow will be gone soon, and everyone will be complaining about how hot it is.

Sorry, Boyd, but the relatively mild weather here does not justify a weak response to snow events. As you point out, six inches here is an anomaly, so there is no need for “huge, all-night-running cadres of snow plows” like up north. You prove the point that snow removal here should be an easy job. Even two or three inches causes school closing, shut-downs, etc. This region has plenty of money to spend on this (rural Wisconsin doesn’t but somehow they seem to manage just fine), but I suspect that things will only change when St. Louisans realize that they are getting the shaft. I think it takes a former outsider to realize how absurd this is.

My wife just drove home a distance of about 5 miles in northwest St. Louis County. She saw about a dozen cars in the ditches and a car in front of her fishtailing wildly going up a ramp (again, SNOW TIRES, ANYONE?). Portions of I-70 are at a standstill. This is all preventable and it is *not* good for our economy. I’ll bet you that we lose more money being crippled by a little snow than we would spend to effectively remove it.

Also, I don’t offer these comments to bash St. Louis. I love it here and am genuinely concerned how this problem (and it is a problem) impacts our lives and livelihoods.

Jimbo — Weak response? You are still comparing apples to oranges. We are not Wisconsin. Considering that our area gets a snowfall like today’s maybe once in 3-4 years hardly justifies our gearing up for Montana and North Dakota winters. Your argument that snow tires on cars can make the difference proves mine.

One to three days of crippled productivity per year does not justify millions of dollars worth of snow plows and contingency planning on the part of our highway department. I repeat: We do the best we can under the extremely limited severe conditions with which we must contend. Give it a rest.

I, like Jimbo, did not intend to “bash” St. Louis, or be rude when I posted my comment. I apologize to all of you who took offense.

Lisa — Although I do not presume to speak for the STLTOTD community — no offense taken. Stick by your guns and the devil take the hindmost.

I support the decision of schools to call off today. Where I live there are many back roads (ie hilly, windy, and low vision on a good day) those roads decide whether the district has school or not. Many people are complaining about how “their” road is fine, but you really have to look at all the aspects of the districts. Colleges have to look at how many commuters they have and their safety. If you were to send kids in for part of the day look at what the buses would have had to drive in. that would be terrible. Plus the hassle for the parents to find someone to pick up the kids or be home they got there. The schools would also have a hard time getting ahold of all the parents/ guardians.

I agree with the decision to call off school today. I was especially pleased to see that one district in particular, (who chose the last time to send the kids out sliding on the ice to school, whilst the other districts closed, only to send them home 3 hours later), got it RIGHT this time, as they were the first and only district in the St. Louis Metro area to close. As far as people complaining, it is always better to err on the side of caution. DId you see that trailer truck spin out on US-64 today? That was scary! Now imagine it that back part of the truck slammed into a school bus carrying your child, and how if that happened you could possiby be arranging a funeral or sitting in the ER right now instead of reading this post.

Also, I would like to point out that some people view the schools as a free babysitting service, so some of the complaining may be stemming from that too. Just another perspective. Anyways, everyone stay warm, be safe, and let’s all hope for warmer weather soon!

Good call. Though it didn’t look like much early on, by the time it was all over, we got 11 inches here in Fenton. Once it got a good start, it really came down fast and heavy. I shovelled our driveway, porch, walkway and the sidewalks in front of our house three times during the day and was impressed at the rate it was coming down. By the time I finished once, where I’d started had another inch or two. So I went in the house, got warm and dry and then went back out again later. Bottom line, I was glad my kids were home safe, warm and dry (until they chose to not be when they went out to sled and play). The plows didn’t come through our subdivision until nearly dark, so trying to go anywhere with all that snow out there would have been a bad choice, especially since we live on a high hill. This is the first year in several that my kids have even had a snow day and this year is a record for them with four so far. Again, good call with the snow day.

I can’t help but be simultaneously amused and annoyed by the comments to the effect of “When I lived in Siberia….” I used to have that provincial mindset until a few facts smacked me alongside the head. I remember when our warehouse in Birmingham, Alabama, shut down because they had one inch–ONE INCH–of snow. The city was paralyzed, no one going anywhere. Had to laugh at “those wimps” until someone pointed out that they only had one snowplow in the entire county and basically had a ten minute supply of salt to last them all winter. When you add drivers who may have never coped with snow in their lives to the reality that there was no snow removal policy in effect, yeah, the results could have been quite messy.

So. I’m not terribly upset at the school closures. It’s a liability issue for sure. One slip of the bus on the ice…two kids with sprains, one with a broken arm and three more with a bump on the head–can you say multi-million dollar lawsuits? And, come on, the ones most likely to complain about the school closures would be the first ones on the phone dialing up the lawyer.