Listening to the news today multiple references have been made about the opposition complaining that there's no national road grit reserve. I'm just an electrician, and I left chemistry behind some 20 years ago, but do they mean grit salt? ie, stuff that absorbs moisture from the air and so "goes off" after a few weeks? That's like wanting to have a national cement reserve.
JGH
The grit/salt box at the end of our street is unusable - the contents are frozen solid. The trouble is that people leave the box open after they've nicked grit for their own drive/path and fresh snow fills the box and freezes the stuff.
And of course, such a reserve would need space, planning permission, infrastructure, etc. All set up since the election..
Yes. "They" had 13 years and didn't get a round tuit. Remember Prezza in
1999? "If we can't make the trains/buses run on time we're not much of a government". Well now, John, since you mention it ...
Anti-caking agents are added to allow gritting salt to be stockpiled for long periods and salt mines can store stock underground, where the air is very dry.
Colin Bignell
Just like it is in its unextracted and dense form?
Around the Lothians they have several stores,ranging from concrete framed sheds to concrete igloos.
Spin. There is *huge* amount of rock salt under Cheshire, demand may out strip the abilty to extract, process and deliver but that isn't quite the same. Is a central national reserve a sensible idea if the roads are blocked? The rock salt needs to be in position at the council depots before the weather closes in.
There may be an argument that the councils are not ensuring their stocks of rock salt are suffcient to carry them through a normal winter and to be honest this one (and last) is what I would call "normal". Tt's just that for the last ten years or so we have had mild/wet winters and the councils have become complacent.
Exactly.
I'd say it's more the everyone has become complacent. What council in the last ten years would not be pilloried if it was found to be "wasting money" building huge "unnecessary" salt stockpiles?
Anyone list to R4 this morning? The "Thought for the Day" chap was gently chiding all those who appear to demand the weather they want, when they want it, and are surprised that the world is not ordered to suit them. Quite apt, I thought.
There was also a piece, yesterday IIRC, on Today saying that 90% of drivers think they are better than average. So they all go out, block the roads and then the gritters etc can't get through.
There also seems to be an assumption that when 2ft of snow falls anywhere else in the world, life continues as normal, whereas this is not the case by any means.
It more that no one is used to doing anything off their own bat without a month of risk assement evaluations and a hint from the Nanny state ..
I meann, how about a load of otherwise unemployed people and £15 shovels being given a reasonable days wage to get digging?
Roads round here (East Anglia) are usable with care. Only 20-40cm of snow.
But its bitterly cold.
Yup. Paris airports closed as well.
It really is exceptional conditions.
My advice? test the conditions, only drive if you are sure you can make it, take sensible precautions, watch for outside pipes and be prepared for bursts.
It isn't quite 1962-3 yet, and its earlier, but we spent three months adapting to that one..lots of disruption, places completely cut off for weeks on end. Heavy loss of livestock outside, or starving inside with no feed.
Lots of people died from cold.
Just to make a point, my CH sytem was sized for -5C no one reckoned that temps ever go much below that. W are seeing -8 at the moment. Worst I have seen in England is -15 + windchill to -45. That's utterly brutal- life threatening = we are not there yet, but its getting close.
In short, this is an Event. and as far as the last 50 years go, a really bad and unusual one. You cannot expect things to be normal. What one would have expected is that people adapt to it rather than moaning about how someone should have Done Something.
In the 60s, our parents ahd lived through military service, the blitz and intense privation post war with food rationing austerity and of course a labour government that bankrupted the nation. A bit of -15C ad two foot of snow was not the worst that could happen, by any means.
Just imagine if we still had Brown and Prescott..it could be worse, much worse.
I thought the last lot set up a reserve after last winter's fiasco.
It's all down to national gibberment of all persuasions squeezing council spending on their strategic reserves, as one ex PM said some years ago, 'selling the family silver'.
At one time gritters were out in the night before the traffic built up. Now (in my area at least) it seems to be a M-F 8-4 operation. Certainly very little done on weekends.
I had little trouble driving to work then. It took two days to dig through the snow drift outside my house to get to the main road but once that was done it was OK. Its OK out there now, but only because so many have decided to stay at home, if they were out there getting stuck it would be grid lock, again! I find it hard to imagine how many get stuck as I have never got stuck on the roads and I never drive a 4x4.
I find that traffic is the best way of keeping roads clear (that's why main roads are much easier to drive on).
So we have to thank all those who ignored the advice to stay home, and ventured out first..
Also a question of whether it's the "right type of grit" :-) I know over here they add different chemicals in different regions according to expected levels of ice and/or temperatures, and there isn't really a one size fits all.
(I've wondered before if the UK could have some program that relied on farmers or other folk with suitable equipment to receive compensation for helping to keep the roads clear, but I suppose it'd be too open to abuse, not to mention liability issues. It must be extremely expensive to maintain a fleet of gritters / ploughs on standby though when you don't even know if they'll be required)
cheers
Jules
Yes, yes, Dennis. We know you're perfect. There, there.
farmers are subcontracted but pettifogging regulation make it hard.
Round here, they tend to just do it anyway. Ive been involved in chainsawing up tree branches across the road and clearing blocked road drains. No one asked me. I just did it.
Wife just phoned to say 'road blocked, fire engine and crane trying to lift horse with broken leg out of frozen pond: been running around telling people the road is blocked. Off to do shopping by different road'
Oh iots a merry game.
Right, bread should have risen, time for some man on oven action..
In this bit of EA we have about 1-2cm :-), but yes cold. We do seem to be ina bit of a 'snow hole' here, it's the second winter where there has been lots of snow else where, and everywhere else seems to have had more than us. :-)
Out of interest, me and the eldest daughter (9) were pondering in the car today about hoar frost all over the grass, trees etc. which we had today. We were wondering about the conditions required to produce it. It must be more than just temp related as I'm sure it wasn't any colder last night that it has been on other nights when it hasn't occured.
Yep. There was a farmer on the TV here a couple of days ago saying that by the time he'd complied with the Health and Safety, liability insurance and taxation (HMRC won't let them use agricultural diesel for road clearing) requirements, it wasn't worth the hassle.
In article , dennis@home scribeth thus
Seem to remember getting to school .. that was open every day even if the heating packed up which meant keep yer coats on and run on the spot if you were cold..
Course there was a differing service ethic then...
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