Like to pass this on -

[PacWestGS]

Received this from a friend not related to motorcycles. It was called "Perspective"





Colorado Weather

Up here, in the Northern Plains, we just recovered from a Historic event---
may I even say a "Weather Event" of "Biblical Proportions" --- with a
historic blizzard of up to 44" inches of snow and winds to 90 MPH that broke
trees in half, knocked down utility poles, stranded hundreds of motorists in
lethal snow banks, closed ALL roads, isolated scores of communities and cut
power to 100's of thousands.
FYI:
George Bush did not come.
FEMA did nothing.
No one howled for the government.
No one blamed the government.
No one even uttered an expletive on TV .
Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton did not visit.
Our Mayor did not blame Bush or anyone else.
Our Governor did not blame Bush or anyone else, either.
CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX or NBC did not visit - or report on this category 5
snowstorm. Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards.
No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House.
No one looted.
Nobody - I mean Nobody demanded the government do something.
Nobody expected the government to do anything, either.
No Larry King, No Bill O'Rielly, No Oprah, No Chris Mathews and No Geraldo
Rivera.
No Shaun Penn, No Barbara Striesand, No Hollywood types to be found.
Nope, we just melted the snow for water.
Sent out caravans of SUV's to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars.
The truck drivers pulled people out of snow banks and didn't ask for a
penny.
Local restaurants made food and the police and fire departments delivered it
to the snowbound families.
Families took in stranded people - total strangers.
We fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Coleman lanterns.
We put on extra layers of clothes because up here it is "Work or Die".
We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a
mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for
'sittin at home' checks.

Even though a Category "5" blizzard of this scale has never fallen this
early, we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves.

"In my many travels, I have noticed that once one gets north of about 48
degrees North Latitude, 90% of the world's social problems evaporate."

It does seem that way, at least to me.

I hope this gets passed on.

Maybe SOME people will get the message. The world does Not owe you a living!

EDIT: I didn't write this and it may or may not be an opinion of mine.

 

[mrich12000]

Vivid Story

You know it is nice when a community pulls for all.

I have an Idea It was anounced today the local ski hill oparators had to lay off 90% of their staff today or untill there is some snow. Normaly er should have 3=5 inshes of that white stuff. contact UPS and send us some.. Maybe the snow oparators could send you some of that stay inside cash

MIke here in Oshawa Ontario Canada
VE3CEH

 

[belquar]

Yep. Colorado ROCKS. When I lived in Durango I worked at the local mountain. I was off one day and we were having a heck of a storm. White out conditions. Close to two feet overnight. I was driving to the mountian to get in some turns. Driving way to fast in near white out conditions. Didn't even realize that I was driving off the road when I did. Right into a huge snow bank. Suddenly it just got very dark in my little Chevy Cavalier. I sat there a bit dumbfounded for a minute. Threw it into reverse and hit the gas. To my utter amazement I came right out of the bank. I continued on up the hill. A cherokee that saw me go in had turned around and was coming to help. I was so proud of my little car.

Only state I have ever been in where hitchiking is so safe and so many folks are willing to pick you up. Too broke to gas up....thumb it. It was awesome. One month me and my roomate decided to commute by thumb. Worked for the entire month. Never late once.

 

[2beers]

Say ya to da UP, Eh?

When I lived in Upper Michigan you would get a foot of snow from the storm and then the lake effect would kick in for another foot or more. You would take your shovel inside the house (so you could find it) and some of the houses have a second floor door that has no steps. So when the snow gets this deep you can get out of the house. I have jumped out of the second story window a couple of timse because the door would not open. I laugh when I hear about some southern city getting 2-3 inches of snow and everything shuts down. My daughter was born during a big snowstorm and the hospital was going to send a snowplow out to get us but I just put the trusty Chevy in 4WD and went. No problem. But there is no snow in our future making for good riding. Almost a rounder this year!

 

[kbasa]

There's no such thing as a "Category 5" blizzard and Snopes says it's false.

http://www.snopes.com/katrina/soapbox/dakota.asp

 

[GeneT]

Snow Storms

Back in the winter of 1957-58 my wife and my self had bought this old building, which was once a Riding Academy for girls and before that it was a speakeasy. We were in the process of making this building habitual when were were hit with the mother of all snow storms.

All my life the old guys spoke of the blizzard of 88 (1888), well this storm shut them up. Snow without blowing was 5' deep, the back porch roof collapsed from the weight, as did the barn roof. Ice formed on the trees and wires causing a power outage. We were in the stranded boonies and my wife was six months pregnant.

Two friends were with us and quickly went bizerk once they realized were stranded, fortunately we had food candles and a gas stove. We buried the food in the snow and retrieved water from the well by tying an (unplugged) electric extension cord to a bucket to get water. We hung a metal trash can lid from the kitchen ceiling light and placed the candles under it. Temperature in the building never dropped below 38??.

A helicopter flew over every day and hovered over the back yard until we went out and waved. We were stranded there for 5 days before the roads were opened, after which a friend who worked for the highway department blasted our lane open with a front end loader, he was followed closely by both of our fathers.

Lesson learned, always have food, water and the means of cooking and last but not least, a generator.

 

[glwestcott]

I think someone needs to visit the level of damage on the Gulf Coast and gain some "perspective".

 

[kurt1305]

I think someone needs to visit the level of damage on the Gulf Coast and gain some "perspective".

I went to New Orleans two days after Katrina and stayed for a week. While the level of devastation was indeed much worse, so was the sense that someone should fix this for them. People stood at the Causeway and I-10 for days waiting for someone to drive them the five or so miles to the airport to be evacuated while bitching venomously about how "government" had failed them. The point made by the author is valid in my mind.

 

[MOTOR31]

My step son lives in LA right in the middle of Southern part of the state. While driving around and through the state I saw quite a bit of devastation. What I also saw outside of New Orleans was a whole bunch of folks actually fixing their houses and other buildings. I didn't see that in NO. I saw and heard a lot of complaining, but not a lot of working to fix things by the owners. There's also a lot of damage outside of NO, but they don't get the press or attention. They just got to work.

 

[knary]

Whenever you get an e-mail that finishes with a prod to send it on to other people, chances are, it's BS. If the sentiment of that e-mail knits neatly with and reinforces your personal views, it is BS. Please check snopes before you help keep this kind of crap from continuing.

 

[knary]

My step son lives in LA right in the middle of Southern part of the state. While driving around and through the state I saw quite a bit of devastation. What I also saw outside of New Orleans was a whole bunch of folks actually fixing their houses and other buildings. I didn't see that in NO. I saw and heard a lot of complaining, but not a lot of working to fix things by the owners. There's also a lot of damage outside of NO, but they don't get the press or attention. They just got to work.

I have friends in New Orleans who shared stories of neighborhoods coming together to help each other and rebuild.

 

[USERNAME]

emails like this get under my skin.

having four feet of snow outside your house is a little different than having eight feet of water INSIDE your house. would you rather sit by your fireplace while the wind howled OUTSIDE your house, or would you rather retreat to your attic, and have to use an axe to chop a hole in it to escape the rising water?

but wait a minute, i've lived in the north, so i know how tough it is. below are just a few of the examples of how freakin' tough and awesome i was prior to moving down south, closer to the coast.

in one storm, we had so much snow outside my house that i couldnt open my screen doors. know what i did? had another cup of hot chocolate. phew! [wipes brow in exagerated way] that was a close call. then i read a book, threw another log on the fire, and later that day, i removed the thumb screws on my screen door window, crawled out, and shoveled the walk. i guess that since CNN didnt interview me, it must mean that i am super-rugged and tough, not that what i dealt with was minor. minor my ass, i had to turn the shovel DIAGONALLY to get it to fit through that dinky window on the door!

in college i lived through an ice storm where my apartment didnt have electricity for five days. know what i did? put on a few extra layers of clothing. on day 2.5, when the cold didnt let up, and we were running low on schnapps, i drove across town and stayed with a friend who still had power. during my time as a category five ice storm refugee, i realized how fragile life was, and how easily it could all be taken away from me. i longed for my hometown, errr i mean home apartment complex across town, and hoped that that the late spring storm would not destroy all the lilac trees that i so loved to watch bloom in late may. when i got back to my apartment, i found that because the electricity was out for so long, my guppies had died. i dropped to my knees in front of their tank and wept. somehow i survived, along with everyone else in that city. obviously the reason so few people died during that ice storm is because we are awesome, not because it merely required sitting around waiting for the city to restore power to those of us that were without it. think about it, i survived because i'm so friggin' AWESOME and self-sufficient! my guppies were obviously from the gulf coast of america, because when the going got tough, they got killed.

another year, i had to come inside halfway through shoveling the driveway because my gloves were wet. i felt SO TOUGH because there were no news helicopters circling overhead to film me in my moment of intense tribulation. i had to change into my spare gloves! there was no FEMA official there to hand me fresh gloves, i had to root around in the hall closet until i found them MYSELF! that's the kind of self-sufficiency that 'mericans need to demonstrate. and it wasn't easy, because they were in the back of the house, and i had to take off my snowsuit and boots and walk all the way back there to get them. at that moment it hit me - i am superior to other americans. i am tougher, and smarter, because i withstood a category five snowfall (those of us who survived swear it was a cateogry 6 or maybe 7 snowfall) and changed my wet gloves. don't even get me going on how the plow put a five foot wall of compacted snow at the end of the driveway. i shook my fist at the guy as he drove by yelling, "i pay your salary you good for nothing government official!" then i paid the kid who lives next door $10 to shovel that snow. (come on, there was a football game on, and the pizza guy had to be able to get through to bring me a pizza, a dozen wings, anda two liter bottle of pepsi.) the kid wanted $15, but i knew his family had the money. his dad worked construction, and every winter when the job sites froze up, he went on unemployment and food stamps, so i knew that the kid didn't need that much money, they were totally self-sufficient without my handouts.

but later the testosterone wore off, and i sobered up a bit. i took stock of the situation, and realized how close i had come to death, losing another tank full of fish, or worse, running out of marshmallows. that's why i moved away from the north - the snowstorms were so devastating and life threatening.

see how silly that sounds?

on a more serious note, this thread brings up an interesting point, just how dangerous and damaging are these blizzards? if you are out in them and cant get to shelter, they can kill you. but once you're inside someplace, your chances of dying are incredibly low.

the email claims they had 90 mph winds. that's a lot of wind, and will rip trees down with ease. i called a buddy who lives on the coast of texas and mentioned high winds. he was nonplussed. to people that have been through powerful hurricanes, (he had his roof ripped off by one (category three) while he was sleeping. he woke up to a horrific noise and was doused with water. his roof, apparently worried about being lonely, took the ceiling with it!) most of them would go to the grocery store in 90 mph winds. "the only thing," he said, "is if you get a newspaper, make sure you double bag it and tie a knot, because when it's windy like that, it can get wet." i asked him if he was worried about trees getting ripped down from the high winds. "trees?" he said. "we get high winds like that so regularly that we don't HAVE any big trees to get ripped down." interesting. i asked him if he wanted FEMA to plant some big trees for him, and then come clear them when they got ripped down this summer. he declined.

what is the loss of life from these blizzards compared to a strong hurricane? someone will likely point out all the cows that are in danger, but they were being raised to be killed anyway, so i don't agree that anyone gives a crap about their life, merely their economic value.

using katrina as an example, estimates put the costs of severe hurricanes into the tens or hundreds of billions of dollars. wikipedia, which i trust as long as stephen colbert hasnt ordered his minions to change it says katrina was around $80B in damage, with at least 1800 people dying as a result. i searched the denver post for news of blizzard-related deaths, and found that five people MIGHT have died due to the blizzard, but they arent sure.

this article talkes about how much it's costing them. in the Blizzard of 2003, the state spent $3.6M. the governor expects the costs from these multiple storms to exceed that.

here is an article from 1/1/07 titled, "Blizzard brings creative recreation to Front Range" and talks about "Here are a few snapshots of mountain fun found in and around Denver when the city harvests the deepest fluff." while i do recall reading about surfers taking advantage of coming hurricanes, i do not recall any articles along the lines of, "residents enjoying flooded city by zipping around on airboats!" or "resident clinging to roof for life comments, 'i've never been up here, the view is just gorgeous!' " i think that if you took a poll, the per capita ratio of residents who go outside to play sports in hurricanes versus those that go outside to play sports in heavy snowfall/blizzards approaches zero.

another problem i have with this article is that it suggests that latitude is the indicator of social problems. or perhaps that colorado is somehow superior. perhaps we could just send all the "whiny" hurricane vicitms up to colorado, and all of the sudden they would become superior to their former selves? and of course, if this is true, we can send all the folks in colorado down to the gulf coast and watch them turn into people who can't hack it.

i went to the coast when rita was heading ashore in 05, and i helped someone board up their house. then i evacuated, along with everyone else. MILLIONS of us in our cars trying to get inland. the government wasnt helping us then either, and we were all helping each other.

whoever wrote that article is extremely irresponsible, and extremely narrow-minded. it was probably written by someone in a nice warm house, with a nice warm fire, on a day off of work while the government was outside plowing the streets for them...

i'm glad that the friends i have in colorado aren't like this person.

 

[testinglogin]

-- long post here --

I was going to comment on something, but I kept finding more and more to comment on. I thought about commenting since I'm a hardcore Northerner, myself... and everyone enjoys my opinion. However, I'll just leave it at this:

Nice!

Oh, and may your guppies rest in peace!!

 

[knary]

emails like this get under my skin.

Well said.

Rugged me is going to go back to my book and tea.

 

[Stuff2c]

I almost choked on my grits when I heard a FOX news reporter ask the Gov of Colorado if he had any requests for FEMA trailers or $2000 debit cards.

 

[dancogan]

It's hard to imagine how someone can compare a few days or even a few weeks of being snowed in with losing your home, all your possessions, and your livelihood, all in one storm. It's ... it's ... bigoted!

 

[belquar]

I almost choked on my grits ...

I LOVE GRITS!!!!!! WITH LOTS OF BUTTER!!!!! I am not of the sugar your grits folks.

 

[glwestcott]

emails like this get under my skin.

having four feet of snow outside your house is a little different than having eight feet of water INSIDE your house...

Well, I believe you have brought some realistic "perspective" to this thread!

 

[john1691]

While we longed for snow around Christmas, it sure was nice to be out riding today in 65 degree weather!!!

I grew up west of Buffalo NY, I've seen snow deaper than the cars on the street, drifts over 10' across a road and white out conditions are fairly common. I'll take that over a hurricane plus 8' wall of water any day. There are people in every part of our country who are reliant on others, but most of us grit our teeth and get to work. The hard work and coming together of a community doesn't make good news stories, like scandel does, so we don't hear as much about it. Personally, I love to hear the stories of the truckers and farmers who risk their lives helping pull others from ditches, and the folks who leave their own house to help clean the water and mud from their neighbors. I have a friend who moved his family from Lancaster, PA to Covington, LA for a year as part of a non-profit group to help rebuild homes. They can't afford to give their kids money for the movies, but they felt "called" to help as best they could after visiting the devistation in that area. There are great people everywhere, if we look for them.

john1691
2000 K1200RS

 

[RGVILLA]

username

+1 emails like that get under my skin as well. Of course, my belief is why else do we have government, the main purpose of which is to "help the people that constitute it" I flew emergency relief when a hurricane devasted Corpus Christi, Texas in 1970. We were helping people in need, who by the way were helping themselves as well. I have also sat warm and cozy in my home during a blizzard, and believe me there is no comparison between the devastation that occurs in a hurricane and blizzard. Oh well, I guess there will always be this kind of thing going around.

Thanks for your post!