As to Ice, Chicago Still Obama's Kind of Town

[question everything]

As to Ice, Chicago Still Obama's Kind of Town
D.C. Needs 'Toughness,' President Says

By Daniel de Vise and Michael Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, January 29, 2009; B01

Washingtonians have bickered for decades over whether the region is too quick to close its schools for snow and ice. Now they're arguing over whether one of their newest neighbors, who happens to be president, was right to take sides in the perennial debate. Either way, President Obama was off to a quick start in fulfilling his promise to embrace Washington's ways. It's a winter pastime for residents to second-guess officials who close schools at the first whiff of winter weather, and the president dived right in.

"My children's school was canceled today," Obama said, speaking to reporters before a meeting with business leaders. "Because of what? Some ice? . . . We're going to have to apply some flinty Chicago toughness to this town."

The remarks might have captured Washington's attention as much as anything Obama has said since taking office a week ago. With those offhand comments, the president homed in on the one thing that riles Washingtonians every winter. His words reflected a common sentiment among recent arrivals from up North or out West: The denizens of Washington are weather wimps. Life around the Capital Beltway grinds to a halt for climatic events that would barely register in, say, Chicago.

(snip)

Some residents have moved here from more southern climes, and there, perhaps, lies the problem. Experience with snow, sleet and ice varies from house to house, from block to block. So why risk it?.. On neighborhood Internet lists, lunch lines and the comments section of washingtonpost.com, the reaction to the president's remarks was visceral. In one sense, the president's gripe was understandable. In Chicago, where his daughters previously attended school, the public schools haven't closed for weather since a 1999 ice storm.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said it would take "a hurricane, an avalanche or a tidal wave" to close schools in Chicago, where until recently he was the schools chief. In Washington, the threshold for closure is somewhat lower... Many suburban schools shut down yesterday, and D.C. schools delayed opening, because freezing rain overnight left cars and roads coated with a thick gloss of ice. Many private schools also closed, including Sidwell Friends, which Malia and Sasha Obama attend.

(snip)


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/28/AR2009012803398.html

[VADem11]

1. To be fair

to my home region, the suburban counties around DC do have many more rural areas where ice can be a serious problem plus the DC area has horrendous traffic even in normal conditions. Traffic would be a mess if the schools had opened. And as the article points out DC itself didn't close its schools. Besides, the kids haven't had a day off all winter. They deserved at least one.

[rawtribe]

2. I lived in the DC burbs in junior high and high school

and loved snow days.

After 20 years in Colorado I must side with President Obama on this one. Snow and ice are no reason to shut everything down.

Grow a pair DC!