However, snow days here are a bit different to what we have in England. For a start, as a general rule, snow days require the presence of snow. Not the case in the South! Two weeks ago the whole university shut down even though it didn't start snowing until 8 at night. Even then, there was no more than an inch or two and yet it stayed closed the following day. As well as this, people went into full on disaster mode; a visit to Walmart the evening before the snow was predicted to start enabled me to witness people fighting for bread. If you've ever been to Walmart then you'll know that you don't wanna get in a fight with this shop's regulars, scary stuff.
People moan about how England deals with the snow but it's taken to a whole new level here. In Atlanta, minimal amounts of snow caused absolute havoc. It was as if there was some sort of zombie apocalypse going on down there. People were abandoning their cars on the motorway, children were having to sleep at school and one woman even ended up giving birth in her car. These issues were mainly to do with bad traffic control and an unforecasted bout of extreme winter weather.
The storm that's predicted to hit tomorrow is meant to be much worse because its not going to bring so much snow as it is ice. Having just had a quick google, the first news site said that 'ice accumulation forecasts "remain mind-boggling if not historical" in cities such as Columbia.' Last night when I was trying to finish a paper/watch the bachelor (mainly the latter, obvs) the programme was rudely interrupted for about 10 mins while a klaxon noise went off in the background and dramatic warnings were shouted out about the impending DOOM that is an inch of ice. I don't know if its just genuinely an extreme rarity for the weather to be this bad but it really does seem a little bit out of proportion. As another international student said, if Scotland worked on the same basis as South Carolina, there would be no education system.
I remember when it snowed last year at Warwick and the university ever so kindly waited for most people to get onto campus before deciding to close for the day, leaving hundreds of students stranded 8 miles from Leam and leading to many hitching lifts or even walking home. But then I guess people in England don't sue like they do in America.
To be honest, the snow days so far have been very enjoyable so I'm not complaining about having another one but it does seem unnecessary. Although this time there's likely to be power shortages and all my foods in the freezer so that's not ideal.
Basically, if South Carolina could just hurry up with the whole sub tropical thing I was promised, that'd be great.
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