Continuing a series of blogs where I write about shoving a microphone in people’s faces, I found myself at a gas station yesterday morning to report on the mayhem that ensued when icy roads nearly hit the Metroplex.
The Lord saw fit to ruin reporters’ plans, though, by keeping it above freezing close to the DFW area. Some of the TV folk drove out to Decatur for a picture of the snow, but I stayed in West Fort Worth, close to the freezing line, but on the non-freezing side.
I pulled into a QuikTrip and was pleasantly surprised that, right away, people filling their gas tank opened up. Their verdict: People in Texas don’t know how to drive when it’s icy:
There was a consensus that as more people move here from the North, in addition to making us feel ways about politics, they’ll also get more frustrated with the way Texas handles the occasional ice storm.
The reason both of those guys explained where they’ve driven is because I told them about growing up in Ohio: My parents had settled there after growing up in New England. They had little patience for how Ohioans totally don’t know how to drive in the snow. People from Connecticut know how to drive in the snow.
Now that I’ve lived in Texas for ten years, I find myself doing the same thing: People in Ohio know how to drive in the snow. People from Texas totally can’t handle snow. Like my parents, I make sure to speak frequently in italics.
But Texas faces different obstacles.
The ice and snow hitting just outside DFW this week shows we’re often right along the freezing line. Instead of getting a foot of snow, we might get rain that then freezes. When it snows back in Ohio, they just plow it all to the side of the road. If it’s icy, TxDOT tries “pre-treating” and then has to keep going over areas that might freeze.
During the cobblestone ice melee back in 2013, I was shoving my microphone into the face of people who got stranded at DFW Airport. Because it’s such a big hub, people managed to get into the airport, but the ice hit so quickly, they couldn’t get out on connecting flights. A bunch of people had to spend the night at hotels. After a round of microphone shovin’ in the line of people waiting for cabs, I thought, “Hey, journalists are here as a public service.”
I yelled out, “Gang, I’m going to Fort Worth. If anyone’s got a hotel in the Mid-Cities, I can drop you off.”
The attendant explained to me that, literally, every single person was from out of town and not likely to know what “Mid-Cities” meant, so he started going down the line and checking their hotel reservations. I dropped a car full of people at hotels along 183 that afternoon, and they got a free ride in a real-life news car [which is exactly as breathtaking as it sounds].
As part of my ongoing public service, this week, I made sure to tweet that I had found cheap gas.
Despite the potential for ice, today seems like a good day to fill the tank, so I haven’t minded wandering up to people at the gas station to ask about their commute. Remember when $1.89 was expensive? #IAmNotAnOldMan pic.twitter.com/SGRpj5rowj
— Alan Scaia (@scaia) February 5, 2020
