[QC704]

COMMENTARY
Don't panic; ICE STORM! won't get you
TOMMY TOMLINSON
Charlotte Observer


Not to make us panic or anything, but ICE STORM! ICE STORM! ICE STORM!

OK. Come out from under the bed. It's all right, I promise.

It turns out we probably won't have an ICE STORM! ICE STORM! ICE STORM! this week after all. If you live in the mountains or foothills, you might get a little frozen something-or-other. Supposedly, Charlotte should see nothing but a touch of rain.


(ICE STORM!)

We can't help it if we're a little touchy. We do tend to run to the grocery store at the first rumor of a snowflake. But deep inside we know that a little snow won't hurt us.

Ice will hurt us.

It did last year, right about this time, when a storm knocked out power to more than 2 million customers in the Carolinas. Some didn't get electricity back for a week and a half. (In my household, we discovered a newfound love for the gas fireplace.)

Every few years we get hit with one of these things. Sometimes I like to think an ice storm teaches us how to live when the extras of life are taken away. Sometimes I like to think it teaches us how to be still.

But mostly I think an ice storm means Nature can be an evil beast, and sometimes it's best to just get out of her way.

ICE STORM!

Sorry.

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I thought this was a very funny article lol. Are you guys in other areas of the south expecting wintry precip this week? Local news guys are saying sleet/freezing rain tomorrow, rain friday with a possible change to snow saturday.

[initiald]

in the south, it's ICE, not powder like up north. You can drive on powder, but not ICE. Let them mock our warnings down here. Tomorrow morning, after some freezing rain and ICE, we'll be pulling their SUVs out of the ditches like usual.

[nostyle]

Charlotte is actually going to use salt this winter. We shall see how that goes.

Do we still only have 4 plows to work the whole 300-square mile city?

[Style]

nostyle, that was crazy last year. After getting out this past break to actually see how huge this city is it must have been a huge job. Just keeping parts of Providence Road open would have been a royal pain. Half the road in the right lane dips down so far that if you plow it you will hit a telephone pole or the gutter. Then you have the left lane that is far too small to drive. Oh the memories!

Then there are all the other major roads of South Charlotte, East Charlotte (my gosh that area has traffic from hell) and the rest of the area! Silly state! ;)

[IHateBirds]

Charlotte is actually going to use salt this winter. We shall see how that goes.

Do we still only have 4 plows to work the whole 300-square mile city?

Not to pour salt on the wound, (hahaha), but Raleigh has like 30 some odd plows I think. Isn't that strange?

Looking back through history and excluding that random ass Nor'easter in Jan 2000, the Charlotte area actually typically gets a tiny bit MORE snow than the Raleigh area. Greensboro and Winston usually get even more.

[Uncle Dave]

Nashville and middle Tennessee had a similar ice storm in '94 that took a giant toll on the area. Let's hope the Carolinas (or us, or anybody) don't have to go through this again anytime soon, preferably ever.

I'd take a nice, white, snow-packed roadway anyday over the 8-lane ice rinks we have to endure just to get home from work, if that's even possible. Don't laugh at us, you often try to compare your nice flat cities with packed snow to our hilly cities encased in ice. That just doesn't compute.

We have our fingers crossed for Charlotte and the whole region. This ice stuff is true evil. Let's hope it doesn't happen again.