Opinion: Our reaction to snow is a joke (From St Albans & Harpenden Review)

Opinion: Our reaction to snow is a joke

1:33pm Monday 11th January 2010 in

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GIVEN that discussing the weather is a favourite pastime for most in this country, you would think that we would be able to deal with all that the elements can throw at us.

But witnessing how a few centimetres of snow brought most of the South East to a standstill, it is clear that we cannot.

Driving into work last week felt eerie with the M1 all but empty and parked cars lining the roads from my home to the office.

Heading home, it became clear that most had not even attempted to get in with windscreen after windscreen still covered in the white stuff.

I am sure many attempted to make it to work via public transport, but I think we can safely say that the vast majority of people looked out of their window, saw less than two inches of snow and went back to bed.

Those intrepid employees who made it in were kept all the more busy by their colleagues calling in to say they were “snowed in”.

Meanwhile, schools closed day after day quicker than you could say “get a shovel out”, making it difficult for those parents who actually wanted to go to work.

I do not wish to sound old, but in my day the caretaker cleared the pathways around the school. The playgrounds did not matter as schoolchildren were kept inside for the day.

Not these days. The health and safety bods are not having any of it.

Never mind the fact that schoolchildren seem perfectly able to walk to their nearest park to go sledging, a 15-yard walk from mum’s car to the school’s front door is deemed far too dangerous. Tell that to the children ice skating on Verulamium Lake.

And then we have public transport. Trains grinding to a halt, stations closing and train companies advising passengers not to travel.

On Thursday morning when commuters were turned away from St Albans City Station, we were approaching approximately three inches of snow.

The power supply had gone down because the temperature had reached -3°C and passengers desperate to get to London were advised by staff to walk to St Albans Abbey station or get a bus to Hatfield.

Compare that to other places around the world.

Now it is blindingly obvious that Siberia is used to the cold weather but over there it has fallen to -58°C this winter.

One Sunday tabloid sent a reporter over to see how they cope and the results are not surprising.

In temperatures of -30°C, two out of 26 flights were delayed and that was not because of the weather.

Compare that to our airports, which close down at the first sight of a bit of sleet.

Schools only close once temperatures plummet to below -30°C and no delays were reported over the seven time zones and 5,753 miles on the Moscow to Vladivostok line.

I am sure we probably pay more per mile for our transport than they do in Siberia, so why do our trains not work in several inches of snow (and that is being generous) or cold temperatures?

As for those who do not think they should travel to work, why do they think a bit of snow equals a day off?

Why should companies have to pay people for swanning around in the warmth of their home when they should be out shoveling the snow from beneath their cars like the rest of us?

And what about our sporting calendar? Football matches due to go ahead on pitches with undersoil heating were called off up to 56 hours in advance.

Not because the pitches were frozen but because people might slip on the snow outside.

I remember football matches being played with an orange football on a frozen pitch where the snow was only cleared so you could see the touchlines.

I am sure clubs did not clear the snow outside their stadiums back then and cannot recall too many problems.

This small amount of snowfall has once more proved that when it comes to dealing with the weather, we are useless. A bit of sustained sun and we have a drought and hosepipe ban; a week of torrential rain and areas are evacuated because of the flooding and a bit of snow and the UK all but comes to an abrupt halt.

If this is due to continue for the next few weeks how long will it be before we are hit in the pocket by the Government so it can deal with the effects of Global Cooling?