Winter just won't let up over here. Temperatures are not extremely low but the ground is still below freezing and wet snow topped with rain a copule of nights ago has reduced many roads, foot paths and bike paths to dangerous skating rinks. 
The warmer temperatures also pose a risks to animals and people who have grown accustomed to being able to safely walk on frozen lakes and canals. Click here to see photos and a video (you'll have to endure a 15 second ad first) of a pony being rescued by the fire brigade after falling through the ice - fortunatley the story ended well and the pony survived. The importance of frequently checking on livestock is higher than ever and thankfully this pony's owner discovered him quickly before he literally froze to death.
Even if you choose to stay on dry land the risks at the moment are pretty severe. Today I dared to take the boys to school on their bikes for the first time - big mistake. We discovered that the roads are covered with black ice; an almost invisible layer of thick ice which is lethally slippery. Even walking and pushing our bikes was tricky. The local council seems to have given up even pretending to do anything about it so we're taking a risk every time we step out the door. I still had half a bucket of raw salt in the garage so I've just been out throwing handfuls of it on the cycle path. I snapped one brave kid trying to cycle through - I've seen 3 fall off this morning already (see top photo).
This next photo shows the corner of our street - it looks like there's just a bit of slushy snow and water on the cobbles but this is solid ice up to 3cm thick in some places. I couldn't even walk over it when I went out to take the photo:
In this photo taken further up the street you can get a better idea of how much ice there is; what looks like white snow on the street is the uppermost surface of a thick layer of ice, roughened by traffic but no less slippery. Again, you can't walk or cycle over this at all (I've seen plenty of people pushing their bikes with long faces) and driving is risky.
I heard on the radio that between mid-December and mid-January, 17,000 people have been treated at hospital for injuries caused by falls. That's so many it's worth repeating: SEVENTEEN THOUSAND! The cost of all those accidents is around 6 BILLION euros, money which the insurance companies will recoup from all of us. So why aren't the councils salting the paths and cycle-ways? Because apparently they only worry about the roads, and by now, as you can see, plenty of them are not salted at all. There are several companies in Holland that produce salt, even one only about an hour away, but they simply can't keep up with demand despite operating at 100% capacity. Normally there are 20 days in the year when roads are salted; this year it has had to be done every day since mid- Decmeber.
It also doesn't help that so many people fail to clear the snow from the paths outside their houses, so it eventually becomes compacted into ice. Our rather uninspiring Prime Minister went on t.v. to declare that it was every citizens civic duty to keep the footpaths running alongside their properties free of snow and ice; and then showed hmself up for the dork he is by completely failing to doing so outside his own house!
1 comment:
1 side commment on the salting it is incredibly bad for the environment. Many trees get killed, and I am the first to admit people are far more important than trees, as trees only produce clean air, where people have all kinds of methods to pollute it, which is so clever.
But indeed, complaining about roads, but not cleaning ones own pavement is so dutch. Not meaning that you don;t clean, I mean.
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