Snow continues to wreak havoc on Dublin

It’s been snowing in the evenings here ever since New Years Eve, and the city has yet to take any action to clear the build up of ice from the roads and sidewalks. This afternoon it hailed and snowed pretty hard for about an hour, adding around 2 inches to the growing layers of wintry mess. Dublin Bus canceled all its services right before rush hour, leaving me, and plenty of others judging by the outrageous taxi queues, stranded after work. (Fortunately, I was able to catch a lift with Johnny at 6 when he got off from Clery’s.)

And the best part is, it’s not really even that cold or nasty outside, at least compared with the winter weather I’m used to. The temperature has been hovering right around freezing, and aside from today, the skies have been clear and sunny during the day. But looking at some of the newspaper headlines, you’d think the next ice age was approaching or something. Here’s a sampling from today’s papers: “Schools to remain closed as arctic conditions wreak havoc” (Irish Independent), “Worsening weather causes major traffic disruption” (The Irish Times), “Big freeze delays benefits payments” (Evening Herald). That’s right, the snow even stopped the postal workers from distributing welfare checks.

The situation doesn’t stand much chance of improving anytime soon, either. Here’s what the Irish Times’ website has to say about the outlook:

“Dublin Bus suspended services earlier today, attempted to resume them this evening, and then cancelled them for the night. The company says it hopes to restart services tomorrow after overnight gritting.

Met Éireann forecaster Vincent O’Shea said there was no sign of an improvement in weather conditions in the next 10 days, with temperatures were expected to drop further.

Temperatures will remain very low, with highs of zero to four degrees forecast. Temperatures are expected to fall to -5 or -6.6C in the coming nights but could be as low as -8 to -10 in midland areas. ‘There will be no chance of a thaw in the daylight hours,’ Mr O’Shea said.”

I also think this bit is particularly interesting:

“The Health Service Executive (HSE) said today emergency wards have been particularly busy in the last few weeks dealing with sprains and fractures as a result of slips and falls on icy roads and footpaths.” Who’s taking responsibility for these injuries? In America, somebody would be getting sued for that shit, for sure! But here none of the businesses seem concerned about lawsuits; even the parking lot at our local Tesco is like an ice rink. If there’s really no salt left in all of Ireland, get out there with a friggin’ shovel and clean it up, Mr. Tesco!

I think it’s best to just embrace hibernation at this point. These “arctic conditions” are too much to bare!