Because of its geographical location, the city of Toronto normally enjoys a particularly mild climate.
In 1999, it declared a state of emergency and called the military to help clearing the snow after a pityful 40 cm snowfall.
The city was widely mocked by the rest of the country for such an overreaction over what everyone else saw as just an average snow day.
I guess 40cm could have been the city-wide or regional average, but in the neighborhood where I lived it was closer to a meter. I remember the digging that I needed to do to get out of our basement apartment.
And speaking generally, with no suburban style mall parking lots or wide roadway shoulders, there was nowhere to put it.
And just my conspiracy theory here, but I suspect that TO’s shady storm water and sewage system may have also played a role. In the early 20th and late 19th centuries, the answers to sewage management was to bury streams flowing into Lake Ontario. The answer to the problem: “this river is an open sewer” was “cover it over.” That’s part of the reason why there are foul, poo-like odors that linger in certain areas (I’m thinking of Christie Pits and Little Italy, but there are others).
I used to live in a mild climate river city in West Virginia. Climate change was becoming reality but hardly anyone called it that those days. The city sold the majority of its snow clearing equipment and the very next year we got a few feet dumped on us. They ended up pushing the snow into the river.
I’m still in WV and it’s 19F right now fuck my life.
I’m in southern Ohio and I’m sharing in your 19F pain right now. My husband was wondering why I spent last week weatherstripping our windows and putting up some of that Frost King film on the others. We’re both glad I saw the forecast in advance.
We usually just get one or two cold snaps in January or February. This weather is unusual within the last 10-15 years.
Oh yeah any climate change denier over the age of 20 makes me insane. Like, you don’t remember how things were in your childhood versus now? We used to get so much snow. Now we get three inches roughly three times a year.
Good looking out on the prep, I hope it saves you a lot of money. I have so many layers on right now.
Love the lack of insect swarms year-round. Hate the lack of fireflies in summer.
What a bizarre thing to lose.
Where I’m at the mosquitos are fucking thriving. I spend a lot of my free time sitting on my front porch. They eat me up, and I have a severe reaction to them. Most of the cool insects are gone.
Roman legions could technically be considered construction teams: legionaires cleared, dug and paved roads, cleared ground for setting camp - daily, if necessary - felled, cleaned and readied wood for fortifications, dug trenches and moats, cut, escavated, moved and laid stone to bolster already built forts and even raised stone fortifications.
on top of marching entire days if necessary, with full battle gear on, at the ready for battle
The term is combat engineer
Somehow, I always viewed that role closer to the sapper.
Its the same picture
Open field > defilade > shell scrape > foxhole > slit trench > dugout trench > bunker > hardened command bunker
It’s not being the slowest one chased by a bear - I’m just trying to survive until a field promotion here man, all the generals and fobbits live underground
Digging snow is preferable to getting shot at, but nobody will give you medals for that.
When I signed up, they were clear on what to expect. The vaaaaast majority of the time is spent maintaining gear and shoveling something into something. They didn’t hoodwink anyone, they didn’t sugar-coat anything. It’s all meditative.
Walking, shoveling, bugs, and small circular motions is kinda the bulk of it.
Digging is a proud thing to do, respect the shovel.
Just ask the death korps of krieg.Were they called in again?
Nah, just an old NCD post I had kicking around
