Heavy snowfall leads to "snow rage"
The usual question about the sufficiency of U.S. road salt supplies is whether there is heavy snow in the East, the Midwest or both. The Pacific Northwest had turned its back on using road salt, assuming its citizens were too green to permit its use. Well, this winter, they're seeing red, as Carrie Swiggum reports for Utne Reader . And, Carrie knows snow; she's from Minnesota. She writes:
Are you tired of the relentless accumulation and stagnant heaps of snow this winter? Well, you’re not alone. Record-setting snowfall amounts in Spokane, Washington, are provoking some residents to exhibit “snow rage,” a term coined last winter, when police in Quebec blamed snow piles for inspiring “a rash of snowblower thefts and incited at least two armed clashes.”
Excessive snowfalls in Spokane are testing everyone’s patience, reports The Week (subscription required for online access), with two instances of residents threatening snowplow operators this season. The first involved a homeowner armed with a gun, yelling from his driveway that he didn’t want to be blocked in by a snow berm. Shortly after, an anonymous caller warned the city that if another snowplow came down his street, the driver would be shot. The call was traced to the man’s house. About two weeks later another man allegedly shot at a snowplow operator after the driver honked at him while trying to clear a parking lot.
The unrelenting snow in Spokane is disrupting schools, traffic, garbage pickup, and mail service. Last week National Guard troops were dispatched to the area to help clean up the city’s surplus snowfall.