So cold that even Norway's buses could not take it
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
After three years without any snow, Paris got hit twice in one week. The city does not do snow plows, but then neither, it seems, does London and some other parts of the UK.
While “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow,” is fine at Christmas in post-holiday Europe it was not what was wanted, especially as people had to get back to work after the holidays. However,bus engine oil froze in Norway and Eire reported the lowest temperature in 50 years. In Britain, the Army got called out to tow drivers caught in snow drifts, amid possible government gas rationing and fireside chats by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who is turning into the nation’s weather comforter-in-chief.
Satellite imagery showed the UK swathed entirely in snow, ending up looking like a baby Greenland. Kids enjoyed in in Britain where many schools were closed. That did mean that the parents often had to say home from work, or at least one parent.
Europeans are adjusting to stymied access to work, closed schools, downed power lines, road diversions, salt shortages, canceled sports events, and life indoors – where media weather reports also include the plummeting mercury in the US, concern for the Indian River citrus crop in Florida, and passenger trains in China being dug out of snow drifts as cities like Beijing are recording unusual amounts of the white stuff.
The Eurostar from Paris to London, a two-hour commute for many, broke down in the tunnel under the English Channel. Again. The problem: Snow gets sucked into the engine, shorting out the electrical systems. Maybe we need to rethink our railways.
They are working on it. British government minister Chris Bryant, caught in the offending train, twittered in exasperation: "I am rapidly developing a very severe hatred of Eurostar as we are traveling at about a mile a year." In the end Eurostar Ltd. reduced the service by half, and asked people not to travel if possible.
The sustained sub-zero temperatures have perhaps hit homeless persons very hard and the Irish Times described deaths of homeless in Poland, Britain, Germany, along with 22 persons that perished after avalanche in the Swiss Alps.
Avalanches also claimed victims in Britain and other places and we do not, as yet, know how many elderly people have come close to death or have even died due to hypothermia as they are afraid to spend money heating their homes. I guess that toll we won't know for a little while yet; community no longer exist and it could be a few days to weeks before anyone misses them. Sad, but, alas, true.
© 2010
