Story of the Day

Well, it snowed here today. We normally get about 10 inches of snow a season. People always expect that since we so far north that we must get a lot of snow. That's just not true here in the valley. Now the Cascades, that's another story. Mount Hood must get around 400 inches of snow a season and Paradise Lodge on Mt Rainier gets 700 inches a year. I have read of areas of that mountain where the annual snowfall is estimated to be about 1300 inches. That's a lot. Here in the valley snow disrupts our lives much more than it does in the mid-west or in the northeast. That's beacuse they often don't plow here. The trucks go around spreading sand and that's it. Tri-Met puts chains on the buses and people use chains, studs, or nothing and make do. One common response is to stay home.

Now in the mountains, its a different story. They know how to handle a lot of snow. The plows come out right away and they plpw and plow until the storm is over or until they can't keep up with the snowfall and they give up and close the passes. But even there no salt or other chemicals are used to melt the snow so the mountains are chain up areas.

Our cars last a lot longer, bridges suffer much less corrosion damage, and our streams do not suffer from salt contaminated runoff.

Of course if you just have to get somewhere you might not be able to. I guess we judge our tradeoffs differently.

January 27, 1996

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Comments welcome

Jack Jackson ( jjack@bearinmind.org )