Dublin Collapses under Snow

Dublin is in a nice part of the world. We don’t gain or loose much with global warming. Nothing extreme about our weather – our variance is just different levels of wetness for the most part.

However since mid-December we’ve had a bit of a cold snap, but avoided the same snowy tundra of other northern-European countries. Apparently Dublin was one of the most Northerly cities in Europe that didn’t get snow. Well, all of that changed on New Years when a wonderful sight was seen throughout the city – gentle falling snowflakes caking the entire city in a white carpet.

Temperatures have been low for a while now, so the snow was accommodated for by the cities cold ground easily. Being New Years day, things were going to be odd anyway. After a house party, a bit of a trek and a scary taxi ride home we saw a lot of cars abandoned on the sides of the roads, drivers choosing to walk or get nearby hotel accommodation rather then risk skidding their cars into each other and causing damage.

So, a week passes and the snow and ice turns to slush, and then snow falls again. Except this time it’s much more snow, and forecasts say there’ll be more on Sunday. The city has descended into chaos, with Dublin City Council not having enough grit to make the roads drivable for most, and Dublin Bus pulling services early. What’s worse is that information is thin. No one knows what roads will be drivable, and what bus routes are going to be operational, forcing drivers to get back into their cars, not knowing what faces them on their commute to work. Cyclists can’t cycle (though Dublin Bikes still seems to have people using the system). All in all, people have been forced to walk many kilometers home in less then ideal conditions – often leaving cars parked behind them.

One disaster story involves a bus driving down Christchurch Hill (a very steep hill in the center of the city). The rear end of the bus slid out from the drivers control and a Garda jeep had to drive up, bumping into the bus and driving forwards to counter-act the momentum of the skidding bus, gently bringing it down the hill (rather then have it career down and potentially flip).

My father, driving from the southside of the city to the northside is a journey that, taking traffic into consideration, normally takes about 20-30minutes. Today it took almost 4 hours in insane traffic conditions hampered by bad city planning that forced drivers to go over certain bridges as others were closed. My brother works in Blanchardstown, and had to walk about 10KMs home in the freezing cold because buses stopped working and no taxi’s would take him the distance.

All in all, a horrendous city planning structure has failed its citizens. Not being prepared for snow and ice is embarrassing for a major European capital with about 1.6 million citizens in the metropolitan area. Dublin bus not having – even limited – service with snow tyres available is another disgrace, and another let down for the citizens. Forcing people to walk is unacceptable, and the money they could have spent would have been spent well. Instead, the money required will be undoubtedly spent on some ludicrous Bloomsday (or similar) event featuring David “I’d Open an Envelope on Joe Duffy” Norris. Sure, this is more snow then the city is used to, but not having a plan makes you wonder what will happen when a heatwave knocks out water supplies, or a flood devastates residents in low-land areas.

All of this did, however, give me a chance to take some nice photographs… which is the ultimate aim of this blog post I suppose. To show off. I tried to make a snowman with the ladyfriend, but the snow is too powdery to do so sadly. Maybe tomorrow… Do check out my flickr photostream or pix.ie album (flickr has more because of pixie’s size restrictions).

And finally my favourite photo by someone else this winter (so far), by the always-great Amsterdamize…