And while various and sundry imports from regularly snowbound cities laugh at the current out-and-out paralysis of Seattle, it’s important to remember three things:

1. We have really steep hills. Cities like Chicago don’t.
2. The streets were already wet, and the quick freeze turned the water into ice within about 30 minutes. Ice != snow when it comes to traction.
3. The big line of snow crossed into Seattle at 4pm, right at the start of the commute.

Add in the Seahawks traffic, people deceiving themselves over the state of the weather, the skittishness of the locals, and idiots in 4×4s thinking they could just power through, and you end up with, well, a traffic nightmare. And with an entire rush hour’s worth of cars on the street, the city’s few sanding trucks can’t get to the hills to try and improve traction. So, people are getting stuck at the bottoms of hills.

Like, oh, me. But the hill was only four blocks from home and a side street, so I just parked and walked. It’s just not worth it when monster SUVs are going sideways on our steep slopes.

Be careful out there. Honestly, if you don’t need to be out, just don’t go out. Stay in and watch the Seahawks get their butts handed to them on national TV.

UPDATE: The bus system is in the usual snow-related paralysis. They’ve gone to Snow Routes. Good luck trying to figure out how those work and where they stop.