Manpower stills the storm front

26 January 2005

I could never understand why weather forecasters were always wrong. They'd predict a foot of snow and we would get a dusting. They'd tell us it would only be a few inches and we'd wake to find ourselves socked in. Then Harvard President Larry Summers raised the whole issue of women, genes and mathematics.

That's it! I thought. All meteorologists must be women!

So last week, as the dire forecasts began, I simply discounted them as the work of the mathematically challenged.

Yet, lo and behold, we got exactly what we were promised. In fact, there was an almost surreal quality to the accuracy of the forecast. On Friday, the talking heads on TV told us the snow would begin late afternoon on Saturday. Sure enough, just as dusk began to creep in, the first flakes appeared. They continued as expected, ending late afternoon Sunday. In between snow fell and winds howled just as predicted, accumulating in startling high piles, again, just as predicted.

The conclusion thus seems escapable: Men have taken over the profession. For them, it was a great weekend.

And for certain male politicians, it seemed a great weekend as well.

Ever since the Blizzard of 1978, Massachusetts pols have been waiting for a similar moment in the sun, so to speak. That was the storm that made Michael Dukakis, the one where - sweater-clad and eyes hooded with the thickest brows known to man - he improbably led the state through a week of disasters.

It appeared that this might be their moment, and Gov. Mitt Romney and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino rose to the bait. The state went on high alert. Boston declared an emergency before the first flakes touched pavement. Schools were closed for two days before the snow had half fallen.

And Sunday morning, at the apparent height of the blizzard's ferocity, when winds made flakes fly sideways and one was blinded from near whiteout, it looked as if they were certainly right.

It was 1978 redux. The veneer of civilization, our sense that we were masters of our world and our destiny, seemed shattered. All of our important plans and errands were postponed. The everyday business of our lives stopped.

This is the moment in columns such as this where I'm supposed to contemplate how such times help us to realize our place in the universe, to understand our vulnerability in the face of Nature's power and to reach a deeper understanding about what really matters.

In fact, though, I spent the day wondering how we would fight back. And as the winds ebbed and the trucks, plows and frontloaders came out, it was with no little satisfaction that I realized that we were not going to quail before Nature. She may have punched, but we countered.

Two days later, under clear, blue skies, we have won. The effectiveness of the cleanup effort seems a marvel. The day after the storm, I traveled around, driving all the way to the Cape, supposedly the hardest hit by the storm. I-93, the Pike, Route 3 and even Route 6 were not only cleared, they were black, their surfaces glistening as if they had borne only the smallest of accumulations. Electronic card readers were merrily beeping in stores opened everywhere; restaurants and bars were packed.

Indeed, things so quickly came back to normal that I found myself annoyed with the governor and the mayor. Were their warnings about emergencies and their demands that we all stay huddled at home overblown? Was canceling school for two days an overreaction?

Perhaps what 2005 proves is that we will never again have a 1978. In the years since, we've gotten much better at handling calamity. Communications are vastly improved; equipment is more plentiful. We know better how to manage plowing and cleanup.

And most importantly, our weather forecasters are perfect. For that, on behalf of Larry Summers, I'd like to say: Thanks, guys.