Get men with shovels to clear roads

It snowed again yesterday, more this time than on New Year's Eve. Probably 2 inches or so. I was out of the country and only flew back last night. Our flight was delayed by 2-3 hours because Dublin Airport had been closed during the snow.

Landing was fine, but getting home from the airport was more difficult. Some of the roads had a fair amount of slushy snow. I had to drive very slowly (I wish I had studded tires or better yet chains. Can you still get chains in America or they no longer acceptable?) and take my chances with all the morons out there who didn't alter their own ridiculous driving habits.

Traffic was light and the temperature was falling so it didn't take a genius to work out that the slushy snow would be ice by morning. Of course, there were no plows on any roads other than the highways (and I'd been warned by text not to use the main highway to my house as it was a parking lot) so this morning the roads are sheets of ice.

And today the airwaves are full of complaints about the lack of gritting and how we're actually running low on salt. I can imagine. There seems to be a great resistance to just dumping sand on the icy roads - even just near intersections, please? - and because nobody plows the roads the whole cycle will repeat tonight. The snow that's melting a bit in the traffic today will refreeze tonight and the roads will be like sheets of ice again early tomorrow. Already the schools have announced they won't try to open again until Monday.

We have to get that snow off the roads. We don't have enough plows to clear the roads, I know, but what we do have are legions of unemployed young men in this city and throughout the country. What if the government promised them a bump-up in their unemployment benefit to come out and join work crews to clear the snow? Just imagine it: men with shovels moving snow off the roads.