The Big Picture – 
By Glynn Wilson – 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The pictures of a snow covered landscape look pretty and peaceful on Facebook (see more pictures below).

But when a massive winter storm dumped 6-12 inches of wet, heavy snow all along the Eastern Seaboard on Monday, and the mercury dipped into the teens Monday night, being snowed in turned to iced in Tuesday morning when the morning low hit 19 degrees in the campground.

Federal government offices and schools in the Washington, D.C., area were closed on Monday as the region received its first significant snowfall of the season, part of a winter storm that left at least three dead and more than half a million customers without power as it moved up the East Coast, according to reporting from The New York Times.

In a metaphor for the precarious nature of our climate challenged and government challenged world these days, if something else had gone wrong here, say if the power had gone out or a camper had slipped down in the snow and ice and suffered an injury, we could have been caught in a death trap. Emergency first responders would have had trouble reaching us out here in this remote, wooded landscape oh so close to the nation’s capital city.

As of this writing, I’m told a snow plow is on the way. It’s now an ice plow, since there is a half a foot block of ice covering the roads and bridges.

As I scan through the news online in The New York Times and The Washington Post, and watch the national and local news on CBS, I can still look out the back window of the media camper van and enjoy the white winter wonderland landscape.

But I dare not get out into the slick scene until the roads are clear in case of emergency. Policy number one is safety first. At least the sun is shining and it’s expected to get above freezing here today, and the wind is not howling.

Too bad we didn’t have a snow shovel in the volunteer shed. And how could I have known I would need snow shoes or snow boots to survive here this winter? I could still use a snow mobile if one was available and get around to take more pictures of the scene and the wildlife.

It’s been so mild from October through December here that we all developed a false sense of safety and security.

They say hope for the best but plan for the worst.

I suspect that thought crossed President Joe Biden’s mind Monday morning when Air Force One made a precarious landing at Andrews Air Force Base in the middle of the blizzard.

I imagine it occurred to some officials in Boulder, Colorado too, when the reckless negligence of a Christian sect likely caused a “colossal wildfire” that forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people and the obliteration of a thousand homes. The investigation is focusing on a property owned by a Christian fundamentalist sect, according to The New York Times, after witnesses reported seeing a structure on fire there moments before the blaze spread with astonishing speed across drought-stricken suburbs.

Sheriff Joe Pelle of Boulder County said at a news briefing on Monday that the property owned by Twelve Tribes, which was founded in Tennessee in the 1970s, had become a target of the probe after investigators ruled out the possibility that downed power lines might have sparked the fire.

We must do better people.

As I recalled in our Year In Review story for 2021, by Earth Day of last year scientists were saying the human response to the coronavirus pandemic showed we are not even close to being prepared to deal with the very real threats of nuclear war or climate change.

We are not doing enough to deal with droughts, wildfires, large storms, floods or snow and ice storms, even in the nation’s capital region.

Hey, I’m just a journalist and a volunteer. The people who get paid to run the government and work for the government must step up their game to get ready for these disasters.

You want good reviews and positive press? Get your shit together!

Updates: Snow plow arrived at 10:48 a.m. Tuesday. No snow shovel.

Snow shovel arrived at noon. Now we can begin digging out. I’m told there were 18 trees down in the park, not counting the one in the B loop.

More Photos

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