Always blame the Russians!

Wow! Was anyone else up early enough to see the blood red moon this morning? Just caught it at 6am as it went down behind the hills.

Damn, I missed it! But I think I was awake at 6am, just unwilling to get out of bed

And we have our first decent fall of snow for some years here. A bit too much actually, hubby unable to drive into work as conditions a bit too dangerous on the motorways even with winter tyres. Snow still falling.

We have about 8cm in Lausanne at 580m and still falling. I see many people on foot and not many cars, so it looks like public transport is going to be packed this morning. Geneva airport has closed. They are going to reassess and possible open at 9 a.m.

Around 20cm snow between Nyon -- Geneve..

Public transport totally normal, didn't see any disruption, got my bus in the village at 05.55 as normal.

Just got an update from Mr. Big who has been sitting in his car at the same rond point in Morges for the last 10 minutes. His normal 25 minute drive from Lausanne to Morges has now taken an hour and twenty and he's still not there. He said Morges has a lot more snow than Lausanne. Lots of wrecks on the autoroutes.

Woke up in Basel to 1-2 cm, with more predicted until 10am, tapering off completely around noon.

Early photos of the streets show that they are covered in snow, so the hubby took the bus (rather than the bicycle) this morning.


Here's to March 1st!!

And 10 minutes after he left to catch the bus he messaged me: he's sitting in gridlock, in front of our apartment.

My street has been drama central this a.m. It's a very steep hill and I heard a crash and went to the window to see a big truck sliding down the hill out of control. He took out a fire hydrant, a light pole, a stone column and one of those big red construction warning signs before sliding through the stop sign and hitting a fence on the other side of the road.

Then, another car came down and swerved to miss all this debris, started to slide and was hit from behind by another car. These two cars also slid into the intersection and stopped.

By now, more neighbors are hanging out their windows and passing the word farther up the hill to block the road at the top, but it was too late.

A taxi came down, hit the ice, hit fences on both sides of the road and slid into the truck. Craziness. Still no signs of police, but the neighbor whose stone column is now cockeyed is out with her camera.

Finally, the last car who didn't get diverted came sliding down, ran over the fire hydrant and spun 180 degrees where he is now stopped in my husband's parking space.

Neighbors and drivers everywhere. It's like a block party. I feel like I should be making coffee or something. The road and the intersection and now been blocked by volunteers. There are still no cops anywhere.

Question. What happens with the fire hydrant that has been sheared off? Also, the lamp post is really damaged and there are loose wires. Level of dangerousness with this?

It's beautiful here.
Loads of snow and it's so peaceful and quiet.
We have a bank holiday here so nobody has to go anywhere so I can just sit in the warm and enjoy looking at it through the window

Yes, but the cops are busy elsewhere and there are no injuries here, just a lot of pissed off people, lol.

Water plus electricity equals big dangerousness.

Run for your life.......

I assume someone has called the authorities?

1cm of snow on the cars, 0 on the road.

Tom

Depends on the mineral content of the water.

No mineral content = no danger.

Tom

Normally the valve for the hydrant is well below the surface, and they're constructed so that the section of pipe between the valve and the exposed hydrant is empty until one opens the valve. The Hollywood scenes showing a geyser are mostly fantasy (it's possible to damage the valve so that it leaks, but not easy).

The wires are a different story. Stay clear of them. It's rare to see power wires between lampposts up in the air here, but when a post gets sheared off the wires feeding from the bottom can be exposed. To be safe just presume all wires are at a lethal potential.

EDIT: Also presume that the post is live.

__________________
If everyone you know agrees with you consistently, they are either not listening, or not capable of critical thought.

Sure, but the chances of water being non conductive in this scenario are pretty low. There will be salt about. Salt is ionic. It would need to be a pretty high concentration, but still...

Roads in Zuriwest have ground to a halt, I haven't seen or heard one snow plow, not a lot of snow, but the city clearly wasn't expecting this. One staff member took 2.5 hours to drive in from Baden (normally takes 45mins)!

Trains between GE and LS are either cancelled or delayed, watch out.

Geneva road conditions were terrible, to say the least, this morning!