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Some basics of Living With Snow culture
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02-12-2010 11:06PM#1Dear Irish people! Now we all are waiting until snow will stop falling and will be back usual Irish weather. But no one can promise that it would be so, who knows, if snow will come back in some weeks!
I come from eastern European country, we have snow permanently or temporary from November to April, so our countries have some essential rules, how to behave in snow weather.
Cleaning roads with special machinery like snow ploughs
Cleaning pavements with light wooden or plastic spades. It is usually done by street sweepers, employed my government.
In specially bad weather conditions for cleaning pavements are bid unemployed people who get social welfare and armed forces.
Gritting roads and pavements with sand and salt mixture.
Use winter tyres for cars with spikes.
NO rubber boots – rubber it material which attracts cold, if you want to wear rubber boots, definitely wear thick wooden socks inside. Otherwise wearing rubber boot for a long time may cause some illnesses like rheumatism.
By the way, on this picture woman is wearing not rubber but felt boots, it is hardly possible to get such in Ireland, so good idea is to get boots with special GoreTex layer which is waterproof, I personally wear those.
Better to clean permanently, otherwise snow compresses and it will be difficulter to clean it later. If snow layer already is compressed, use special bat but don’t hit to strong, to not damage pavement surface.
Surfaces must be clean, otherwise in thaw time, when everything will start melting it will be terribly slippery.
When start melting – beware of icicles!
In northern countries buildings on the design stage are specially calculated on snow load, because snow layer on the roof(and specially compressed during some thaws snow) may cause 90 kg/m2 pressure(~20 cm layer). So in our countries we clean roofs, to beware its collapse, several times during the winter if layer of snow is too thick.
Also if you don’t clean the roof, a specially sloping one, snow may pile up on the roof’s edge, and in the thaw time huge blocks may start falling down(usually on the pedestrians heads).
I just want to live and enjoy winter time without terrible traffic jams and dangerous situations as you all!
Kind regards.
One more tip… about gardening, don’t be frightened that snow covers all your plants, actually snow is natural isolation, so without snow in a big frost plants would be frozen. There is nothing spare in the Nature
Tagged:66
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How about they buy lighter ploughing equipment then instead of stuff that would clear the polar ice caps which is not needed here?
And that,Foggy_Lad,is exactly what Dept of the Environment specification and purchasing policy has been for some time now.
Virtually all of our Local Authorities are well equipped with fleets of Dual Purpose trucks from 4 to 38 Tonne capacity.
In addition many of these have additional fitments to take lightweight composite or plastic snowplough blades.
The Grtitting equipment is now generally a demountable self-contained unit powered by a donkey-engine.
This ensures that the vehicle is available for "ordinary" work during the non-snow season and is one of the few areas where we bothered to put a bit of thought into specification as opposed to buying the biggest shiniest yoke we could find.
However ,as is becoming increasingly evident this time around,our problem now is the lack of money to pay staff to work the necessary unsocial hours overtime to get the work done.
Instead we have seen many incidences this time of 0800 - 1700 weekday only gritting rather than the almost 24 hour rota`s of past years.
This "Office Hours" approach might work IF we had a similar ethic to what clear_sky describes in post #1 whereby much of the spadework is carried out by mass manual labour or even emergency military input.
We are still somewhat away from that level of response,but if things get much worse socially in Ireland it may well become a live issue yet.
My experiences over the past week has,I`m afraid merely reinforced my opinions of our current crop of "Yoof" as I bore the brunt of several "Snowball" attacks on my cab and on my passengers as they attempted to board or alight.
The preferred method of ambushing buses now appears to be sending one of their number to walk deliberately out in front of the Bus to stop it,then the rest of the savages open the rear emergency door and/or the other doors and attack the passengers inside the vehicle.
Even on my journey home as a Luas passenger I had to watch as the local bored,underpriveleged,and doubtlessly poor inner-city yoof`s attacked the Tram as it slowed to approach the Four-Courts,Smithfield,Rialto,Fatima and Bluebell stops...ah sure is`nt it great to see the chizzlers enjoying themselves.....
Nope it`s not great,but until we adapt and come to regard this type of abberant behavious for what it actually is then we`ll continue to swim along the bottom of our little pond !
Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.
Charles Mackay (1812-1889)
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Like this, perhaps?
Sums it up really. Its not hard. Very basic and adaptable equipment.
But I don't subscribe to all of the "man hours/staff shortages" argument put forward by Aleksmart. The N7 and M9 in Kildare are still down to 2 and 1 lanes respectively. Where are these snowploughs???? These roads could have been cleared today during normal hours.0 -
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DDigitals revelation that....The emergency military input was alive and well in Leixlip, Co. Kildare on Thursday and Friday of this week. They cleared Captains Hill of ice and were still on the ground by Friday afternoon clearing footpaths.
...is very good news indeed,but begs the question as to why the Defence Forces capability was not bharnessed far earlier in proceedings,given that this weather event was one of the most accurately predicted for many years.
In my own area I was taken aback by the treacherous condition of the approach roads and roundabout leading to Tallaght Hospital.
Given it`s status as a significant National Medical Facility I would have expected that some effort would have been made to keep access to the National Primary network clear.
Again it comes down to manpower rather than mechanics.
A deployment of 50 soldiers to billet in the hospital grounds for the duration would have made a big contribution to improving things here but it appears to be regarded as a step-too-far in terms of responses to the emergency.
We have the equipment
We have the manpower
What we lack,even in small amounts,is forward sighted planning,management and response to allow the two elements to be fully utilized.
Maybe should ask the IMF to get more involved in running our little country ?
Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.
Charles Mackay (1812-1889)
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DDigitals revelation that....
...is very good news indeed,but begs the question as to why the Defence Forces capability was not bharnessed far earlier in proceedings,given that this weather event was one of the most accurately predicted for many years.
In my own area I was taken aback by the treacherous condition of the approach roads and roundabout leading to Tallaght Hospital.
Given it`s status as a significant National Medical Facility I would have expected that some effort would have been made to keep access to the National Primary network clear.
Again it comes down to manpower rather than mechanics.
A deployment of 50 soldiers to billet in the hospital grounds for the duration would have made a big contribution to improving things here but it appears to be regarded as a step-too-far in terms of responses to the emergency.
We have the equipment
We have the manpower
What we lack,even in small amounts,is forward sighted planning,management and response to allow the two elements to be fully utilized.
Maybe should ask the IMF to get more involved in running our little country ?
I concur and I promise not to feck a snowball at your bus again.:D
JOKE!:eek:0 -
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Unfortunately don't have time to read and understand everything properly.. but
We have the equipment
We have the manpower
What we lack,even in small amounts,is forward sighted planning,management and response to allow the two elements to be fully utilized.
Just visit any of Northern European Capital city's municipality, and ask - what they have, what they do, and in what order. Exchange of experience!
I am not really happy that country almost stops on 2 weeks, especially now because of economy we need to work hard.
The best time for snow ploughs to work is before main traffic jams, so- early morning and midday.
Oh_Noes, sure woolen Please be tolerant, it took be long time to make that post. 0 -
Just visit any of Northern European Capital city's municipality, and ask - what they have, what they do, and in what order. Exchange of experience!
I agree 100% Clear_sky,in fact it was surely one of the prime reasons for this country joining the EEC back in the 1970`s.
However very few Irish politicians or administrators really understood the true meaning of our giving up the notion of an Independent wee statelet in order to become part of a greater Europe.
Worse still it was exactly these eejit`s we sent on fact-finding missions to European Capitals rather than the far more enthisiastic middle ranking foot-soldiers who would have relished the opportunities.
For most of our gang it was and remains all about how much money we could score from Europe...having to adopt to sensible efficient European practices and lifestyles never entered our minds.....jeepers just contrast a late evening journey through rural Belgium or Holland to a similar exursion in Ireland.....going to bed early and getting up early is a good example to begin with ! :eek:
Maybe this weather will give us the collective kick-in-the-arse to actually regain the ability to do stuff for ourselves again ? Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.
Charles Mackay (1812-1889)
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