School on Tuesday?

I did my usual Saturday trek out to the Towson Target and Trader Joe's this morning, heading from my Bel-Air/Edison neighborhood through Lauraville, Hamilton, and up Loch Raven to Towson.

Here were my adventures:

1) Trying to go up one street out of my neighborhood, and finding it impassable.

2) Trying to go up another street, and finding a plow there working (good).

3) Trying to go up another street, and getting stuck behind a city plow driver that had himself gotten stuck. After sitting there around 15 minutes, I backed the entire block length to get out and find another way to escape.

4) Sinclair Lane is one lane and really backed up because of it.

5) Turning cars on Erdman have vision blocked by snowpiles that are really high.

6) No one on Bel-Air Rd has a place to wait for the bus except out in the street. It's down to just one lane on either side, meaning if you're stuck behind a bus, there's no way to go around.

7) Kids walking on Walter Avenue, hand in hand, because there are no sidewalks clear. Same with most of the streets.

8) Northern Parkway is fine except for turnarounds, which have really limited visibility. MECU parking lot and area esxepcially hazardous.

Once I got out of NE Baltimore and into the county, things seemed better. Of course, I was on major roads only. The Towson Circle streets are all single lane and Trader Joe's was crazy busy (couldn't even find parking in the mall parking lot there), but that's to be expected. Took 695 to 95 home; that was fine.

The verdict? The city has two days to get the city ready to have kids go to school. I don't know if it can be done. You can have 3rd graders walking on the still full-of-snow roads on their way to school. If more snow is on its way, as forecasted (chance of 6"-12"), then I don't know when we'll be back.

Dr. Alonso thinks that the city can pull together and clear sidewalks so kids can get to school. I hope he's right. All the plows are putting the snow back on the sidewalks, though.

These snow days aren't fun anymore. Time to go to work.