{"id":7162,"date":"2011-01-27T12:43:37","date_gmt":"2011-01-27T17:43:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/?p=7162"},"modified":"2022-08-09T07:00:10","modified_gmt":"2022-08-09T12:00:10","slug":"a-helpless-bystander","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/a-helpless-bystander\/","title":{"rendered":"A Helpless Bystander"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Snow hit the Washington, DC metropolitan area yesterday evening (January 26, 2011). It wasn&#8217;t a bad snow, certainly nothing compared to last year&#8217;s &#8220;<a href=\"\/blog\/?p=3447\">Snowmageddon<\/a>.&#8221; However, the timing was awful. It hit right at the height of rush hour in an area with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2011\/01\/20\/AR2011012000056.html\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"undefined (opens in a new tab)\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">worst traffic congestion<\/a> in the United States even on a perfect day. Predictably, the entire area jackknifed. Gridlock formed on an epic scale. I think people will be talking about this one for years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I found a lot of related searches in my website logs this morning, the most poignant being &#8220;<em>get off gw pkwy during traffic jam<\/em>.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/maps\/embed?pb=!1m22!1m8!1m3!1d99333.4746058567!2d-77.111555!3d38.92006700000001!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!4m11!3e0!4m5!1s0x89b7b3e69da406ad%3A0xecb4d362fbafd8c4!2sGeorge%20Washington%20Memorial%20Pkwy%2C%20Washington%2C%20DC%2020037!3m2!1d38.880545399999995!2d-77.05266569999999!4m3!3m2!1d38.964214999999996!2d-77.175946!5e0!3m2!1sen!2sus!4v1660046369616!5m2!1sen!2sus\" style=\"border:0;\" allowfullscreen=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What Happened?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I learned this morning that people were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arlnow.com\/2011\/01\/27\/gw-parkway-reopened-as-crews-clear-abandoned-cars\/\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"undefined (opens in a new tab)\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">trapped on the George Washington Parkway<\/a> for as much as fourteen hours last night, some until dawn this morning. I can only hope that my random website visitor from Great Falls (an area near the Parkway) accessing my page via &#8220;research in motion limited&#8221; (in other words, a BlackBerry device) found his or her escape and made it home safely. I&#8217;m going to guess it was an all-night adventure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/metalchris\/3231052391\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/3411\/3231052391_e3995579a0_o.jpg\" alt=\"Can you give me a ride? Photo by Metal Chris; (CC BY-NC 2.0)\"\/><\/a><figcaption>I imagine it must have looked something like this!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I followed the various social media in fascination yesterday evening as friends and loved ones updated their Facebook status and Twitter feeds using mobile devices, live from the road. Multi-person conversations pinged from and among those stuck in automobiles with those of us hunkered-down for the duration at home. I saw real world applications of the Six Degrees of Separation principal as Facebook friends-of-friends offered shelter to weary commuters who couldn&#8217;t escape past the inner suburbs. I watched events unfold electronically, but unable to do anything about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">And Me?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>My story? I have none. My employer offered a choice: leave the office at noon and telework for the rest of the day or leave two hours early with no strings attached. I chose the former, worked my normal day, and sat comfortably at home as thunder-snow rocked the neighborhood. Doubtless, one of my better decisions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Snow hit the Washington, DC metropolitan area yesterday evening (January 26, 2011). It wasn&#8217;t a bad snow, certainly nothing compared to last year&#8217;s &#8220;Snowmageddon.&#8221; However, the timing was awful. It hit right at the height of rush hour in an area with the worst traffic congestion in the United States even on a perfect day. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,501,282,732],"tags":[484,2738,1498,2125,2739],"class_list":["post-7162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cities","category-event","category-nature","category-weather","tag-blackberry","tag-facebook","tag-gw-parkway","tag-snowmageddon","tag-twitter"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A Helpless Bystander - Twelve Mile Circle - An Appreciation of Unusual Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Snow hit the Washington, DC metropolitan area on the evening of January 26, 2011. 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