Until one morning when a teacher and two students (separate accidents) were killed driving to school on the unplowed roads.

tells us faculty to used our sown judgment. So I do not have class. Once a student had an accident on the way to another class, I said “enough!”

It's up to our manager. If things are really bad, we always have the option to work from home. Only rarely does the entire office close down.

to class. No snow days are written into the calendar anymore to be made up later.

...to get out of the driveway. I call those "snow days."

unofficial anyway

Thankfully, they've made it more possible for staff to work from home the past few years.

appointments and events are sometimes cancelled when road conditions are unsafe

If there are any school-aged children in your life, show them the Snow Day Calculator.

https://www.snowdaycalculator.com/calculator.php

know if flakes are flying I ain't a coming - regardless.

conditions. Unpaid, of course.

If a tropical storm or hurricane is causing downpours and flooding, the city will often recommend that people stay home if they can. I've had bosses send us home early when the weather was really bad (and still pay us for a full day).

When I was working Whole Foods in Austin we had an ice storm one year. The boss told everyone that they didn't want anyone to take any big risks, but if we made it into work we'd get a $100 bonus.

I was a teacher for 9 years and we always had a couple of rain days built into the calendar. If we didn't use them, the school year just ended 1 or 2 days early.

Decisions to close federal government or apply flexible leave are based on safety considerations. For example, in DC, it's considered whether it's safe for employees to be on the roads and whether the additional cars and Metro traffic during rush hour in heavy snow overly burdens the city infrastructure, emergency workers, etc.

dangerous when it snows.

famous when a couple inches brought the city to a stop. We knew people who couldn't make it out of their neighborhoods, stopped by some stupid slope they'd never given any thought to, because they didn't have chains.

They don't have a lot of snow removal equipment. It must be much worse in Atlanta. LOL.

we didn't move to the PNW, but my husband loves the heat.

Icy, snowy Montana and thinking your husband might be pretty smart.LOL.

where he had friends. Beautiful, but I said no to anyplace that didn't support at least one great bookstore. That was 40 years ago.

Enjoy your ice and snow. Also beautiful, and at least you're not forced to cover up by mosquitoes or chiggers. They're not bad in our part of Florida in winter, but they're never gone. But then we chose to live surrounded by marsh.

We close early and start late every once in a while due to weather, but we do not close unless the Denver Airport (DIA) closes, supposedly. I've worked there for five years and it has never happened.

If you were deemed an essential employee, you had to go in, but otherwise if OPM declared that Federal offices were closed for the day in the DC area due to snow (or other extreme weather), you got a paid day off.

Sometimes if conditions were bad but not bad enough to close down, they declared "liberal leave" (now called something else!) which meant you could take annual leave without advance approval.

... you don't get a snow day when your office is closed for weather; you still have to log in from home.

And I think "liberal leave" now is that you can come in up to 2 hours late due to weather without having to use your Leave time.

==========

We didn't have have snow days because if we did, then they would have to give overtime to essential employees such as County police and Public Works. If it was bad, and you didn't want to risk it, you needed to take a vacation day.

conducted online or through some other means during these times.

it takes more for universities to cancel classes than the public K-12 schools

Qualify as academia too.

That was during the 1967 Chicago blizzard. It took my father three days to get home from work six miles away.

When school started again, I had to walk six blocks in unshoveled snow to get to my school because no buses were running.

something from another century also. Thank goodness your father waited; guessing not everyone did and eventually made it home.

Of course, I used to walk four blocks to and from my grade school (and home and back for lunch). My mother didn't drive and so never had a car; my father left long before school started. And I either walked alone or, more usually, with a group of kids. No parents. Most mothers were home taking care of younger kids.

My father's job was not in the best neighborhood, so he had to stay at the YMCA across the street and had no change of clothes. I'm sure that he was very happy to finally get home.

is a great tragedy. The paranoia that's been fostered to increase conservatism is very much a part of our political degeneration. But it occurs to me that it's probably self reinforcing, with whole generations now who growing to voting age believing children have to be under constant protection.

No change of clothes! In a dorm full of others with the same problem no doubt. That you know about it says something about how much he must appreciated his home.

Also how to take care of ourselves. I'd ride my bike around the neighborhood (often alone) and loved it. By age 12 or 13, I'd take the el downtown with friends (8 miles away) or other places. LOL, having experienced independence at an early age, I still value it now.

My father sold auto parts to commercial customers and so wore a suit/sports jacket and tie to work. He was quite a spiffy dresser so having to wear the same clothes for that long was not pleasant. There weren't any decent restaurants in that area back then, so I doubt that he had a decent meal during that time. Strangely enough, that area is now very trendy and has new housing and good restaurants. The YMCA and the building where he worked are long gone.

He probably took a long shower when he got home.

when it snowed. That was 40 years ago. It would go like this...."316, 317, 319, 320", etc. We would schlep all the way to school just be be told they decided to "close school after all, so go back home". Grrrr!

And her number on KYW here in Philly was 777. We would hear “775,776,778,779...”. They never closed. Ever. It was a small Friends school and the head of school had a Jeep in the old days before anyone else had 4WD.

Huntingdon Valley (Lower Moreland School District). We had a 4W drive Jimmy for trips to the Poconos but it came in handy for the few big snows in the Philly suburbs.

When I became a teacher in San Diego they closed school for the first time ever for fires (a whole week each time) in 2003 and 2007. Two extremes...snow and wild fires.

Being from Maine and driving a Subie at the time, I was a little amused that 2" would close post, but my section chief called me and said don't come in. 😂

Yep. Military has 'essential personnel only' days at those times.

no matter where they worked or went to school.

.............

Seriously, construction work - particularly high work - may be shut down if the work is considered so dangerous it risks the safety of exposed workers. Especially true in high wind and it may be too risky to operate cranes.

I'm now grateful to be retired from that sort of activity and my most dangerous activity is feeding the birds....

my buddy and I take the day off to go fishing. We are our own bosses.

And a whole lot of businesses in the DC area just close whenever the Feds do. DC bars make a killing on snow days.

An amount that midwesterners or northerners wouldn’t even notice stops everything in its tracks lol.

If I could drop pictures from my phone on here, I’d show you some of what we have to deal with in construction.

You don’t have to come in if you don’t want to deal with the elements but you won’t get paid. We don’t get sick days, vacation days or paid holidays. Construction is based on production.

pretty rare but it does happen.

will close the whole city if there is snow. Traffic is already horrible, and snow can strand people on the road for over 12 hours. There is no equipment since snow is rare.

in a small upstate NY school district, near Syracuse, in the 80's.
One of my job responsibilities was to contact the radio and tv stations on "snow days" or "emergency closing days.
The bus supervisor went out and checked the roads.
He then contacted the superintendent of school who made the final decision.
The superintendent called me and I contacted the tv and radio stations.
In order to make sure my call wasn't just anyone trying to close schools, I was given a "secret code" that I had to provide during each of my calls.
In addition I developed a "phone-tree" for my staff. I made a call to one teacher and each person on the list called several others until everyone was notified. (in case they weren't listening to the tv or radio). The process actually worked pretty well.
Today, I believe these calls come directly from the superintendent of school.

in the same area, and we have a choice go into the district, go into our base, take a vacation day.

If a really bad storm was coming midday.

But it's more of a soft shutdown, work from home or stay home and don't work if you don't feel safe driving in.

He slid right through a turn and ended up sideways in my yard and driveway. Poor guy was there six hours waiting for assistance.

We offered him to come in, but he said no, and waited in the truck. The kids took him cocoa and a sandwich at lunchtime.

The truck stayed ten hours waiting for a tow.

.... a snow day growing up in northern Illinois, but we did have no school bus days, and those kids just stayed home.

Not an answer to your question, but a fond reminiscence.

to a much less snowy place and was introduced to the concept of snow days.

I think the difference is because they had so much less snow in my new town, they also had a lot less snow removal equipment for the roads.

... learning to drive on icy streets. That came with learning to drive.

which can be bad with snow, ice, and even rain.

I don't remember hills like this in Illinois.

There was the night that I was sleeping over at my friend's when her parents were in Florida. The sleepover was sanctioned, but taking the car for a spin was not. It slid sideways when she was coming into the garage. We had to get out and push it away from the side of the door. Those were the days!!!!

My first airplane ride was to Atlanta when I was about 8. I'm from Illinois. They'd had an inch or two of snow and it shut the city down. I was amazed. Will always remember that. Not the least reason being that we were bumped up to first class for some reason and had fried chicken for breakfast!!!!!! An indelible memory.

I take that back -- once I got to school and was shocked to discover it was closed (after walking through all the snow). Apparently the teachers couldn't make it. But that was the only time.

Later, when we moved to a state with milder weather, I remember our neighbors, from India, calling to see if school was going to be cancelled. They were talking about something called a "monsoon." No, it wasn't the beginning of monsoon season, and yes, the schools would all stay open.

Yes, I do remember ice being possible in Illinois.

But it's usually ice we know might be there. Not the freezing rain, black ice we get in Seattle.

in the past. (Wisconsin) Also, my husband did sales and was on road a lot. He was always told not to go out if the weather was bad.

snow days were often citywide -- from schools to all businesses, etc. Usually they were unpaid. Often businesses would delay until 10-11 to give a chance for ice / snow to melt and/or the converted tractors to take the first swipe (we had no plows).

It looked like the end of the world. Cars sliding everywhere, off roads, into ditches and culverts, local newscasters freaking out.

I wish!!





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didn't even stick to the road. I remember when my friends that lived on a farm milked the cows then walked 1/2 mile the end of their driveway in a foot of snow and never missed school.

Nothing like coming out to the vast parking lot and trying to find your car when 5 inches of snow fell during the class period.

...on days when it snows. I do have to make sure I remember to bring my company laptop home from work when we're expecting snow.
In fact, I just did that today since snow is expected locally tomorrow.

It's a good thing about being a software engineer that being in the physical office isn't all that vital.

At some other jobs I didn't even need to bring my company laptop home, because I could connect to the company's network using my own personal system. For security, however, my current employer requires using one of their own computers to connect.

And here in New England that happens at least once every year. So yes, sort of. Most of us can work from home anyway, so we don't actually get the day off.

...but over the last few years (decade?) it doesn't matter. We have plans to continue "on line". Of course, the power may be out, the hurricane party is going full blast, and the roads are jammed with evacuations.

As a child in the 60s I spent the night on the second floor of an elementary school with two teachers and about 15 kids when the flooding closed the roads. That doesn't happen anymore...the forecasting usually stays ahead of the worst storm effects.

No snow...it never gets below freezing here.

Happy days from Florida!! High of 81 today.

The rule in our office is simple: If the NYC schools are closed, so is our office.

In fact, the company's owner is adamant that no one should put themselves in danger while traveling to work. So, if you have to work at home on a bad weather day, that's okay as long as you stay in contact with the office.

Progressive employers are wonderful to work with!

It was pretty common in Illinois where I was raised if it was a really bad storm to at least have a later time to report to work. Schools have to deal with buses, and the possibility that a student could be killed on their way to school. Suits against schools are what drives the increase in snow days.

But of course, the poor public works employees were working around the clock, and in blizzards some of us were taking phone calls in the emergency management HQ.

Today it's been freezing rain all day. The branches are coated in at least a quarter inch of ice. I'm working (taking a break now) from home. I love ice storms. Even if I am closing out a grant, it doesn't feel like work if I'm in comfy clothes sitting on the couch.