The storm after the storm

Most everyone is back to work and school this week after two enormous and unusual snowstorms battered the D.C. area last week. That's the good news.

The bad news is that in a metro region with the second-worst traffic in the country on a normal day, snow-covered lanes on the beltway, interstates and local roads are causing massive traffic jams. Plows used those lanes during the height of the storms to pile up snow from the other lanes. That wasn't a problem when hardly anyone was on the road, but now that the commuters are rolling again, people are getting trapped in gridlock. Perhaps in the aftermath of this winter more companies will begin to consider telecommuting options.

It appears this is the year of records in D.C., Virginia and Maryland. Record snowfall. Record-low average temperatures. Record unemployment. And now record traffic jams. It is taking some people two hours to go five miles. I saw a woman interviewed on the television news who was in her car on Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown. She hadn't moved in over 30 minutes.

The snow isn't melting fast enough. Every other day is cloudy and cold. There were flurries two days ago and another dusting is expected today. Even when the sun is out it isn't getting above 35 degrees. The average temperature for this time of year is 48.

President Obama is providing federal emergency disaster relief funds for the area. Some of the money better go to bringing in mental health experts, because people are losing it. This isn't Fargo. This is a big metropolitan area that isn't use to this sort of weather or the hassles it brings. This is an area that needs to function.

In Loudoun County, Va., where I live, someone who was trying to help another motorist get out of a ditch was hit by a car. While other motorists waited patiently for this kind man to help the stranded driver, one impatient idiot decide he had had enough and zoomed out around the cars, striking the good samaritan. He was later arrested.

Meanwhile, a resident had his tires slashed for parking in a spot that he hadn't dug out himself. Apparently, a Sterling, Va., resident didn't like the fact that someone parked in "his spot." Of course, the spot was a public space. While it might be frustrating to lose the spot to another car, I am not sure slashing someone's tires is a good way of defending something that technically isn't yours to begin with. But this is very typical of people in the D.C. area. Not the kindest folks in the world.

And so it goes around the metro area this week.

The problem with big storms isn't the first or second day of the snow when everything is still and pretty. It's all the garbage that occurs when people try to resume their normal lives in an location that is prone to congestion, road rage and entitlement even on a mid-summer day.

The snow looks ugly, dirty and is piled high everywhere you go. But people are behaving in a manner that is even uglier this week. I feel the pain of those stuck in their cars for hours. I've been in those situations many times in my 16 years here. However, if people don't get a grip, things are going to get far worse.