Is Amarillo Ever Prepared For Weather? It Doesn’t Feel Like It.
It's official. We've finally had the first TRUE snow of the season here in Amarillo. Yes, we've had some snow here and there, but nothing like what hit us overnight. Now I understand it's not like we had a blizzard or anything hit.
However, it WAS enough to shut down city offices and schools.
I've lived in a couple of different places that got snow pretty regularly, more snow than we saw this time around. My school wasn't closed, city offices remained open in some capacity if not full capacity, and people left their houses a bit early to get to their destinations on time.
So why is it that when Amarillo gets just a few inches of snow, the entire city shuts down? When I drove into work this morning, every side street had some standing snow on it. That I expect because the plows don't tend to come through neighborhoods.
When I made my way out to a major road, such as Washington, there was a little bit of slush on the road and that was it. You could clearly see the street and it wasn't cold enough for it to truly freeze it over to where we have to worry about ice.
So why is it everything shut down? We've been aware that snow was coming for a week now, and while I know it can be hard to trust the weather predicted out THAT far, we've had an idea it was coming. It's not like we weren't prepared for it.
This morning, you could see the plows out, whether they were clearing the roads of any snow left over or if they were doing something else, it slowed the traffic down when it wasn't really even needed in my opinion. Were the roads ever treated beforehand? I mean, that would've taken care of any concern with the snow. 4-7 inches is not a lot.
If the roads weren't treated beforehand, shame on the cities. The highway seemed solid to me this morning, so I want to say they were, but then again it could be because it really never got cold enough to where it just flat-out froze onto the roadways. They were wet, I had to use my wipers from splashback. That was it.
Is Amarillo and the Panhandle doing the right things in order to prepare for these events to where the whole city doesn't have to close down? Maybe it's time to re-evaluate our weather plan.