The Seattle Volunteer Street Closure Brigade

As I type, Seattle is in the grips of its first snowfall of the season, and this one is shaping up to be more than a minor inconvenience. Why? Not because of the amount of snow—scarcely two inches in the city proper—but because of the temperature: stuck below freezing. That means many streets have turned to sheets of compact ice.

Many Seattle drivers—having no experience driving in snow because they have so few opportunities to learn—are doing a great job polishing the ice on the surface on the road outside the house. They get up the hill about even with the mailbox, then >whirrr!<, then they slide back down the hill. It's not a particularly steep hill, but the street is narrow, many people approach the incline coming around a turn rather than going straight up, and, like I said, it appears many people don't know better than to stay clear.

So I'd like to applaud the efforts of the Seattle Volunteer Street Closure Brigade—the SVSCB—which is doing a commendable job of making streets like mine safe for everybody during snow storms and icy conditions. How are they performing this heroic civic service? By selflessly bringing their personal vehicles to the slipperiest, iciest, most difficult parts of the street, then abandoning them, forming an obstacle course for through traffic or shutting down the street entirely. Laudable. And selfless. My heartfelt thanks.

Beginning this morning about 4 A.M., a gold four-door sedan began bravely blocking the street, making all other traffic on the street maneuver (and slide!) around it. Surprisingly, no one hit the sedan. Once the sedan completed its 12-hour shift and departed, though, the SVSCB was on the job again, this time in the form of a bright yellow Dodge Dakota pickup. The owner took it upon himself to block the road at the exact same point the sedan had abandoned not twenty minutes earlier—and being rear-wheel drive going uphill, did a much more impressive job illustrating the dangers of fishtailing on smooth, icy surfaces! The Dakota's owner was also the quintessential Seattle driver, sporting a classic Northwest Winter wardrobe of a bulky down North Face parka over cargo shorts and flip-flops.

Once the Dakota's services were needed elsewhere, it extricated itself with the help of a 2 × 4, cat litter, some cardboard boxes, and kindling—the SVSCB quickly dispatched a four-wheel drive Suburu Outback wagon to occupy the exact same spot on our hill. Gotta hand it to these folks: they have much more reliable response than city services! Huzzah!

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