Mary makes a good point.
<<PS do you want to pay for the significant expense of equipement used
once in 10-20 years rather than accept the disruption when such an event
actually occurs?>>
But I still nearly wet myself at the weekend when I heard on the news
that Derry and Belfast airports had to close because of two inches of
snow. Two inches in Canada is a non-event.
I suppose what bothers some of us who see how folks cope other places
with amounts of snow which seem massive to us here in the UK, is that
there should be local ways, initiatives, whatever of trying to keep
things going. There doesn't have to be a massive fleet of expensive snow
ploughs sitting rusting in roads dept yards.
For example; this evening I was gathering up daughter's friends to come
to our house to got dolled up for a gig. One friend's mum has not been
at work this week due to living up a real steep hill. It's ok in a SUV
or something with 4 wheel drive but not a regular car. But it would not
take a lot to clear that road--a man on tractor with something heavy and
metal dragged along behind it would do the job. Even a very basic snow
plough blade, one per mile of road, farmer keeps it in his shed and gets
paid a nominal amount of stand by per year then a decent rate per hour
if he has to go out and clear a road.
The main roads were pretty ok fairly quickly here due to volume of
traffic, what kept folk off work were factors like steepness and tiny
amounts of traffic on small road.
Declan
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