sickness

Monday night, I couldn't sleep, and tuesday, I woke with a sore throat. I wondered who I caught it from. The only ones that came to mind were the three guys who were over on sunday night. One of them sounded a little wheezy, but that was just his cat allergies. He is a dad, though, so I wondered if he was a carrier.

Cindy went for a haircut last night. She went to the same place I went last week, and we were comparing our experiences. I mentioned that the girl who cut my hair was sick, and Cindy said that must be where I got it. I think she's right. The girl sounded stuffy, and had an occasional cough. Her symptoms seem to match mine.

the snowstorm

On February 5th, we had a really bad snowstorm. Well over a foot of snow everywhere. From Madison, I heard reports of motorists being stranded for five hours on the freeway. It turns out that it was much worse than that. The day after the storm, Governor Doyle ordered an inquiry.

Here are a couple of highlights from the event timeline:
11:14 am. An accident blocks the northbound lanes of I-90.
4 pm. TV station reports people starnded on the freeway since 11:30 am.
5:15 pm. Having heard no reports of large-scale accidents or blockages, the emergency center makes plans to close.
5:40 pm. The emergency center hears of the backup.
1:23 am. Snowmobiles are dispatched to wake drivers and get them moving.

The State patrol is taking a lot of heat for refusing to close the highway. They say that there was no way to turn traffic around or safely reroute it. I can understand that, but they also refused to report to the public that it was impassable. How are you going to keep even more people from thinking they can travel?

In the evening, Dane County dispatched people on snowmobiles (not sure who. DNR? local clubs?) to check on stranded people. People stuck in their cars since noon, probably hadn't had anything to eat all day, were freezing, maybe run out of gas. People who needed information and reassurance. The State patrol refused Rock County's request, for a while. No, you can't go out there. It's dangerous. Like... they were going to get hit by a truck or something?

Notice it's exactly fourteen hours between the start of the crisis, until the snowmobiles are dispatched to wake drivers and get them moving? I wonder how long it took to get all the stranded motorists moving. I wonder what they were doing for them in the meantime. Use of the National Guard was authorized at 7pm. What were they assigned to do? They did deliver food, water and blankets. What could have been done? Even the official review doesn't have many suggestions for the people on the ground.


newspaper story

newspaper timeline

Report by the Adjutant General of Wisconsin