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From the headlines I saw this morning, he only spent 1 hour on the road. 45 minutes more than the usual trip for his motorcade to travel from Andrews AFB to the White House. My friend, on the other hand, was stuck in traffic for 8 hours last night trying to get from Tyson's Corner to Annandale in his 4x4 pickup.

Well, an hour sucks, but 8 hours is downright outrageous. I don't know the distance involved, but if it's his everyday commute, it's probably 20-40 miles or so.

I grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio. Snow is in my genes (and sometimes, my jeans). We learned to drive in it, and the local and state governments were equipped to handle the snow (usually, though they tried to take a day off on February 13, 2007, but that's another long story).

2 weeks ago, we had 9 inches here in southeast Tennessee. As you might have guessed, people here don't have any clue about driving in the snow, and the area isn't equipped for this kind of snowfall. I drove to work early that Monday morning and checked traffic cameras around town all day - nobody - I mean nobody was on the road. It was pretty much shut down. Things didn't get back to normal until the end of the week.

Well, an hour sucks, but 8 hours is downright outrageous. I don't know the distance involved, but if it's his everyday commute, it's probably 20-40 miles or so. I grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio. Snow is in my genes (and sometimes, my jeans). We learned to drive in it, and the local and state governments were equipped to handle the snow (usually, though they tried to take a day off on February 13, 2007, but that's another long story). 2 weeks ago, we had 9 inches here in southeast Tennessee. As you might have guessed, people here don't have any clue about driving in the snow, and the area isn't equipped for this kind of snowfall. I drove to work early that Monday morning and checked traffic cameras around town all day - nobody - I mean nobody was on the road. It was pretty much shut down. Things didn't get back to normal until the end of the week.

My friend's commute is usually less than 30 minutes or about 15 miles. Unlike Obama, he didn't have the SS and local law telling everyone ahead of him to GTF out the way.

I grew up in the U.P. of Michigan, about halfway between Lake Superior and Lake Michigan and am very familiar with snow in the jeans... The worst I ever saw was in Michigan City Indiana in 1979. We had 15 foot high drifts which closed down I94 for a week. The mayor of Chicago ended up loosing his job over the crappy job the city did trying to handle it. Now I live near Raleigh. Two weeks ago they closed the schools at 10am because it was supposed to snow. We finally got some flurries around 6pm...

Well, an hour sucks, but 8 hours is downright outrageous. I don't know the distance involved, but if it's his everyday commute, it's probably 20-40 miles or so.

Tysons to Annandale (assuming Rt.123 or Rt.7 to 495/Beltway to 236/Little River Turnpike) is only about 10 miles.

The biggest single problem, imho, was how the local media was downplaying how bad things really were. Sure, they were in their usual sensationalist Snopocalypse mode saying that traffic was bad, people were getting stuck, etc. But they SHOULD have been reporting a lot earlier (I saw a bit -finally- on the local Fox 10pm news) that roads like the Beltway were at a a dead stop and people should stay put. In a place like Tysons there are plenty of restaurants and bars (plus the shops and multiplex at the Mall) to hole up in for several hours.