London paralyzed by epic snowfall!

[guanin]

Five inch snowfall wreaks havoc! Temperatures plummet to 20° F! All bus services stopped! Flights grounded! Tube crippled by those pesky overground stations! Schools closed! Uni classes canceled! Students pray that snow may continue! And no one bothers to clean the roads!

Well, the road in front of my building looks clean now, though that might be meltage because we're slightly above freezing now, but the sidewalk still looks dirty. No, they didn't clean the sidewalks either. And I'm in central London. I struggled all of yesterday not to fall on my ass. It wasn't even that cold. That 20° thing was after midnight. During the day it was 30° F/-1° C. This whole thing is just silly.

Snippets from yesterday's Yahoo! News:

An army of snow ploughs and gritters is working around the clock to clear roads, but motorists, who were warned only to make essential journeys, were caught in tailbacks of more than 50 miles and queues of up to two-and-a-half hours.

Earlier, major airports closed runways, all bus services were cancelled in London during the morning rush hour and dozens of trains - including all Southeastern services in and out of the capital - were suspended.

On the London Underground, ten of the 11 lines were either completely or partly suspended as a Transport for London spokesman blamed the "quantity of snowfall" for the extent of the disruption.

(For those wondering why the hell the Underground would be affected, many lines have overground stations. In some cases, like in the Circle line, they're intermittent, but in others like the Northern and Picadilly, it's one solid stretch of overground stations followed by all underground stations, so I don't see why they couldn't just shut down the overground stations and have the rest of the service running smoothly instead of having severe delays in the whole line. I feel sorry for people going to the airport, though. Picadilly has 20 minutes of overground before arriving at Heathrow, but it's not like they could have gotten a flight soon, anyway.)

A snapshot survey of more than 300 employers found one in five adults had stayed away from work today because of the extreme weather.

More than 11cm of snow fell at Heathrow Airport, 25cm over the North Downs in Kent and Surrey, 8cm along the eastern side of the Pennines and 1cm across the Welsh border.

More than 1,000 primary and secondary schools were forced to shut their doors due to the adverse weather conditions. Schools in southern England were among the worst affected.

At Heathrow Airport, a Cyprus Airways flight, CY 332, from Larnaca strayed on to a grassed area while taxiing to the terminal building in the snow after landing shortly after 8.30am. None of the passengers were injured.

Nearly 800 flights were cancelled at Heathrow and others were subject to long delays. About 200 Ryanair flights into and out of the UK were cancelled, mostly at Stansted, and all BA flights from Heathrow were cancelled until 5pm.

And some pics:

Comments

[visiblemarket.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow. That looks absolutely gorgeous out there! Are you enjoying it or has it been mostly staying inside and watching the stuff fall?

[guanin.livejournal.com]

I went out yesterday to take pictures and go to the supermarkets hunting for bagels that I didn't find *cries* I'm like Liz Lemon with those chip things that made her think she was pregnant, only with bagels and dried figs. It really wasn't that cold, although I did have three sweaters on. But now my joints hurt from trudging through the snow. I am staying in today, though, cause I have a presentation tomorrow and have read nothing. It's on Mexico's transition out of PRI hegemonic rule, a subject about which I know nothing, which is why I took this class. I've got books checked out of the library, but haven't actually looked at them much.

Anyway, it's not snowing anymore since it's above freezing now. Damnit! I wanted classes to be canceled tomorrow.

[visiblemarket.livejournal.com]

Aww, Liz and her Sabor de Soledad's. One of my favorite understated jokes because they've never come out and translated it. Bagels are good too, though. It's really weird to think of a place where they wouldn't have bagels, though.

It's on Mexico's transition out of PRI hegemonic rule, a subject about which I know nothing, which is why I took this class.

Si se puede! *cough* No, but seriously, that's your problem right there: I only take classes I already know something about. That way I can feel free to snark at the professor and how they're teaching it wrong. Sure it gets boring sometimes but anything that makes me look and feel brilliant is enough of self-esteem booster to make up for it.

Aw, well, you've already had classes canceled though, right? At least you hopefully enjoyed those?

[guanin.livejournal.com]

*laughs* That name is hilarious and so very apt. I think the supply trucks couldn't get there because there were big, empty chunks on the shelves. The whole bagel section was clean.

Well, I took this course/major/whatever to finally get to learn some stuff I hadn't had a chance to study before, and it's a completely different world from undergrad courses. There's no real "bad teaching" going on per se, although sometimes a professor insists on pronouncing a name wrong while the rest of the class roll theirs eyes. Yeah, that happened in that class with a Portuguese name when half the class (including me) knows how to pronounce Portuguese and there's a Brazilian woman. *head desk* The thing is, I had to pick something, but I didn't like any of the choices this semester, so I got stuck with this one. And it's politics! I've never taken politics in my life. There are these terms and models and theories flying around and no one will slow down to explain them properly because most of the class is in the Globalization course and knows them already. I'm a history student people. Sure, that's a social science, but it's classified as humanity at my old uni, so I knwo literature and philosophy and all those things that have no bearing here whatsoever.

The thing is, the class that got cancelled was the one I don't have readings for. And the one where I wanted to talk to the professor to finalize my next essay topic. So not so great. Why couldn't this snowfall have happened today? It's already melting.

[visiblemarket.livejournal.com]

It really is. I adore the 30 Rock props people, they're brilliant. Man, that's what happens with cities unprepared for snowfall: I know, for instance, that a certain recently elected President was snarking about all of us DC people being big ol' wimps when it comes to snow, but compared to somewhere like Chicago, we don't have the resources or the experience to behave otherwise. Driving in snow is hard enough when you're used to it and have the proper tires; if you haven't had a reason to learn how to do it and get the proper equipment...well, bad things. Like no bagels.

Ah, that can be tough. But look, it's just...pre-history. In more ways than one, knowing some kinds of politicians ;) Seriously, any of those theories are just the precursors to stuff like...whatever that revolutions model is called. And if it's Mexican politics, it just helps to think of it all as an extension of the original colonial system (although my one and only Latin American history discouraged that) that you already know about.

Bah. The weather is always so inconsiderate.


ETA: and not to sound like too much of a...anything bad...but if you ever need a hand on the globalization and/or politics stuff I know a bit. More about globalization since I dropped my politics classes a while ago, but still.

[guanin.livejournal.com]

That's true. The problem here is precisely that. They're not used to this amount of snow (figures we'd have the biggest snowfall in years the one winter am here when I was trying to get away from the stuff, but at least I'm not driving).

Now that I've actually started reading, I am glad (not that it's a good thing) that caudillismo is still the dominant factor, since that's something I just did an essay on, so that makes everything easier to understand. Plus, I found a book that isn't throwing fancy terms in my face every other page and then not explaining them.

Thanks for the offer. The professor does a pretty good job of explaining stuff but the exam in May is freaking me out. and the essay.

[ysrith.livejournal.com]

I live in Yorkshire, we have been mocking!
Got up to 6 inches of snow on top of yesterdays and guess what... roads are all gritted and still functioning, buses are running.

Bloody soft southerners!

[guanin.livejournal.com]

In Chicago this is such a normal thing that I'm having trouble accepting that the streets around my are weren't cleaned in the whole day. I think it's like visiblemarket pointed out. They're not used to dealing with this amount of snow down here, so they don't have the infrastructure to handle it, but still, it feels weird. I can't believe classes got canceled.

[ysrith.livejournal.com]

It is amazing isn't it, how the whole place stops? In the summer it was the heat, in the autumn the leaves on the train tracks, now it is snow...

Gives up.

[guanin.livejournal.com]

The leaves on the train tracks? *shakes head*

At least one of my Londoner friends is frustrated about that whole situation. He was complaining yesterday about how people here are always freaking out about the weather.

[g0shawk.livejournal.com]

Lol, awesome!! And SO PRETTY!!! :D

[guanin.livejournal.com]

I was so surprised to see everything covered in snow that Monday morning before I went to bed (it was already white by four in the morning). And then later on I saw this little snowman in the gardens and it felt juts like a movie.

[drakochi.livejournal.com]

Lol. That is funny. *looks outsides and sees LOTS of snow* How many inches in London fell?

I can not see snow anymore around here, it was adorable around December and January but now it has to go ~ espesially that it will be soon become grey instead of white. I'll take some pictures and post it XD.

What makes me laugh a little bit is as soon snow fall everything is stoped. Even in Canada's BC they had major problems with this years snow. Here in Quebec it doesn't really stop anything unless it is huge. It only delays planes, and buses and makes people pissed off but it doesn't paralise us. So look at me and see me laugh at that London snow. I was reflecting earlier how would it be for me to spend a windet in London. Would I feel cold or not? I mean I dislike cold, but I don't think anywhere else there can be cold as in Canada or Russia.

On another note, have you seen the Heroes superbowl commercial?

[guanin.livejournal.com]

Five inches, a bit more at Heathrow. But seriously, the reactions here are ridiculous. The library is closing early today because of the "adverse conditions". 35° weather and melted snow is adverse?

You probably wouldn't feel as cold as the locals. I hat the extreme cold, which is why I came here.

Yes. I think I enjoyed the promo pics more though, and that video of Adrian and Milo playing together.