Storms dumping 2 feet of snow on the region are facts of life in the Red River Valley. In Washington, which has experienced a white Christmas only nine times in recorded history, they're extremely rare. Researchers already are comparing this weekend's blizzard with the Knickerbocker Storm of 1922, so named because it led to the roof collapse of Washington's largest movie house of the day, the Knickerbocker Theater.
Below, a few quotations from Web logs, the Washington Post and other outlets, as Easterners deal with the storm some wags have dubbed "Snowpocalypse Now."
- "Two friends in Washington's Dupont Circle, a hip neighborhood of gracious old rowhouses and apartment buildings, sent out the first word (about a downtown snowball fight) Thursday night," reported www.politicsnow.com .
"By Saturday afternoon, owing to Twitter and Facebook, as many as 2,000 people, from infants in Snuglis to retirees on skis, converged at the iconic fountain. ... In a nod to litigious Washington's surfeit of lawyers, the cyber-invite carried a liability disclaimer: 'The people spreading the word about the happening are not preparing any special equipment or conditions and may not be held responsible for your decisions and/or actions.'"
- Washington Post announcement: "Anyone who wishes they'd made one of the many large, organized snowball fights yesterday still have a chance today with a fight that starts at noon on the Ellipse in front of the White House."
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- "The Woodley Park area of Rock Creek Park saw adjustment and improvisation of a different sort," the Post reported.
"Some of the sledders there used the usual plastic toboggans and inflatable inner tubes, but most coasting down the hills turned to more creative options: trash bags, a suitcase, an old-fashioned wooden model that's been in the family for four decades, a flattened cardboard box with a pie tin duct-taped to the edge to serve as the headrest. ... But first prize clearly goes to Vanessa Benoit, 35, who bought a child-sized aero-bed for her 5-year-old son Pablo because stores had already run out of traditional sleds.
"'It's the best,' she said. 'The kids can ride it 4 or even 5 at a time. It's like a magnet. Every time we go down more adults and children jump on. It's a great way to meet people.'"
- "Tom Allen, who lives in Scaggsville,Md., in southern Howard County, awoke at 5 a.m. to find the electricity off," the Baltimore Sun reported.
"'My wife took all the things out of the refrigerator and stuck them in the front yard,' he said.
"While his wife and little girl spent the day under blankets in the living room, Allen was shoveling snow for four hours with his neighbors, figuring that his neighborhood wouldn't see plows for days and that he might need to take his wife and child to a warm place. He was interrupted only by a request from his wife that he dig through the snow in the yard for the bologna.
"'The house got down to 63 degrees. It has been a cold morning,' he said."
- "The scenes were not what tourists and locals were used to in the nation's capital, which took on a surreal feel as it was buried under nearly 2 feet of snow," The Associated Press reported.
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"'Right now, it's like the Epcot Center version of Washington,'" said Mary Lord, 56, a D.C. resident. ...
"National monuments seemed even more stately.
"At the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, soldiers' names were buried 16 rows deep. The wreaths of the World War II Memorial looked like giant frosted doughnuts. The big attraction at the Lincoln Memorial -- not the nation's 16th president, but rather a snowman -- had eyes of copper pennies with Lincoln's likeness."
- "On Christmas Eve in 2001, we received over seven feet of snow. It wasn't a blizzard. It wasn't 'Snowmaggedon,'" a blogger from Buffalo, N.Y., wrote.
"It was just Christmas."
