By Sree Sreenivasan
DNAinfo Contributing Editor
Another week, another two feet of snow. It's been an exhausting February with us New Yorkers in an endless loop: prepping for blizzards, fighting through blizzards and then recovering from blizzards — just to start all over again. And the Twitterverse runs through its new cycle, #Snowicane to #SnowtoriousBiG to #CabinFever.
While we seem to have made it through our latest storm, it did turn deadly on Thursday as a tree limb fell on, and killed, a man in Central Park.
For what seems like four straight weeks, I have been posting photos and talking online about each of the storms that has seemed to threaten our very existence.
The result of all the media attention, amplified by journalists sitting around in New York City and Washington, seemingly cowering (and tweeting) from under the desks has been people in the rest of the country thinking we can't handle a little bit of snow.
Here was a post by Sonali on my Facebook wall: From Toronto: Such a fuss about a little snow...
So, in an effort to save my fair city's delicate reputation, I want to give you my take on what has been going on.
Yes, we have seen snow before. Yes, we know that it snows every year at this time. Yes, other places get more snow more often than we do.
But, having lived in Manhattan for five years in the early 1980s and then from 1992 through today, I can tell you that there is something very unusual about this year and I am not just talking about February being the snowiest month in history.
Usually, we get one blizzard every three years (or something like that) worthy of major attention. This year, we have had three straight storms that have dumped as much snow (or threatened to) as anything I have seen in all my years here. People who have lived here longer than me have pointed out the same thing.
I cannot recall the mayor announcing the closing of the New York City public schools a day in advance, without a snowflake in sight — as he did with the last big storm. More than a million kids welcomed the snow day, but parents strapped for resources and trying to hold onto their jobs, were left scrambling to take care of them.
I want to make it clear that we are still a tough city. Terrorist attacks, transit strikes, blackouts — we have survived them all. But there's something going on with the weather that is playing havoc with our day-to-day lives.
Our subway system, already overburdened, has a tough time dealing with extra rain or extra snow, ruining our commutes, making us late and making us cranky.
This, too, shall pass. But the winter of 2010 is going to be long remembered for our adventures, real and imagined, in the snow.
Sree Sreenivasan, contributing editor, explores the changing media landscape in his columns for DNAinfo.
