Dear St. Paul: Is There Something You Want to Tell Us?

So last Sunday, we had considerable snow fall in our fair city and they ended up declaring a "Snow Emergency," which for all you non-Minnesotans, is a lot less exciting than it sounds and simply means the (usually) orderly process they use to clear the snow. (Incidentally, sometimes when they declare a snow emergency, Josh and I declare our own personal one because of all that talk about Night Plow Routes" and such --wink, wink.)

Anyway, they started plowing (hee hee) on Sunday night and on into Monday. I didn't drive that day so Josh could take the "good in the snow" car on his long commute to work. By mid-day Tuesday, when it was time to drive Charlie to preschool, I loaded up the kiddos expecting smooth sailing. Instead the roads were horrible - like they didn't even plow some places - even on main arteries like the Snelling Avenue overpass of I-94. Hmmm....I thought.

That night on the news, there were all these stories about how the cold snap following the storm contributed to poor road conditions (well, okay, except there's almost always a cold snap after a big snowstorm). On Tuesday, roads were still kind of crappy, and as I drove north on Snelling to run some errands, I noted that, as I crossed over into Falcon Heights, the road became immediately clear and dry. What the hell St. Paul?

Fast forward to Saturday. After spending most of the week driving on slushy, partially-thawed and re-frozen streets, we get a message from the city saying that they are going to do some more plowing this weekend to improve road conditions. But to be clear, they are NOT declaring a snow emergency. No, instead, they've just called, texted, and emailed a bunch of people they have in their database to let them know that they are plowing the roads and that we should move our cars in the exact REVERSE order that we usually do during a real snow emergency. I really hope that works out for you, St. Paul.

Seriously, what is up with the snow removal, St. Paul? Did someone crucial to the operations get canned? Is there new management that has all kinds of "fresh ideas" that don't work for crap? Were you hoping that it was going to warm up enough this week to take care of things and it backfired? Are you jealous of Minneapolis and all the revenue they make with their byzantine snow emergency rules about "odd-side parking, even-side parking, oh just do yourself a favor and head straight to the impound lot to retrieve your towed vehicle?" Whatever it is, I understand if you don't want to 'fess up, just get it together, people. Otherwise, it is going to be rough winter.