An Icy Mess

Tuesday the Washington area woke up to an icy mess. Freezing rain and sleet had fallen the night before. It coated cars and sidewalks and streets and steps. Making it difficult to maneuver on the Tuesday morning commute.

I was up early. My plan had been to go swimming in the morning. I quickly decided not to do that. I certainly wasn’t going to drive to the pool. And walking looked like it was going to be just as dangerous. So I put off swimming in favor of trying to get rid of the ice on my steps and walk.

I didn’t have any problems with getting the ice off the steps. A couple of quick hard hits on the ice with my shovel cracked some of the ice off. Then it was easy to shovel the rest of it away. The sidewalk turned out to be much harder to do. It would have been easier if the had been more ice. But the little that stuck to the sidewalk turned out to be too difficult to get rid of. After about 5 minutes of trying I decided to give up.

With the steps at least clear, I knew I would be pretty safe getting to the sidewalk. I could then very cautiously get to the street which had been plowed and was clear. This is exactly what I did as I headed out to the subway on my way to work. I figured once I got to the subway it would be clear sailing. It didn’t exactly turn out that way.

I had to walk in the streets to get the Metro. The sidewalks were sheets of ice.

Once at the Rhode Island station the problems started. There was a delay. It turns out there was a track problem outside of the Tenleytown station. This forced trains to share the same track between Cleveland Park and Friendship Heights. This of course backed everything up. So we waited and waited and waited at Rhode Island Avenue to move. One nice thing the operator of the train did was he closed the doors which it much warmer in the cars. When people came on to the platform he would open the doors to let them in.

We continued to wait. Finally a train going in the other direction pulled into the station. The operator of our train said that people could take this train up to Fort Totten. Transfer there to the Green Line and take that back down into the city. You could then transfer at Gallery Place to the Red Line.

Sounded like a good idea. Many people decided to do that. But just like you should almost never switch to another line from the one you’re in, this was not a good idea either. I got on the north bound train. The doors closed. Then the train I’d been on heading into the city closed its doors and moved out. Oh well.

Got up to Fort Totten with no problems. Transferred on to the Green Line. Again no problems. I got off at Gallery Place and the place was packed. I decided that I’d walk the rest of the way to work. It isn’t very far. All of the sidewalks were clear too.

A fun way to start a new week.