| The report I heard said that 18" of snow fell on Jerusalem - that is
extremely unusual, and probably created a terrible mess since snow is
rare enough that there aren't going to be plows, etc. In fact, I was
glad to see that this node was up during my lunchtime NOTES break...
My rabbi has some pictures of a light snowfall in Jerusalem, which were
very pretty, and even that little bit of snow is very unusual. I
expect it is about as bad as when someplace like Washington DC gets a
lot of snow - even in southern Indiana, where my mother lives, the rare
heavy snowfall makes a huge mess and is only very slowly plowed off
with road-graders and other inappropriate equipment because the town
owns no plows and only one sanding truck.
So I hope someone in Jerusalem replies here (after Shabbos) to let us
know how they are doing.
/Charlotte
|
| >Someone from the local office: Did they really shut down the
>schools and industries a few days ago because of the rain?
Not really.
My kids didn't go to school on Wed/Thu; the schools were
open, but very few of the kids went. Many of them my
son's age (10) had never seen snow...
The road situation was an unholy mess. There were many
roads in local low spots with as much as a *meter* deep
water (like to the middle of your car windows!). There were
something like 50-75 roads closed in various parts of the
country on Wed nite. Between that, and the snow in Jerusalem
(so they closed the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv road; hundreds and
hundreds of cars were there for half the night), many folks
didn't go to work.
Jerusalem was badly hit in terms of electricity. Many trees/
branches down; tonight's news said they'd have power restored
everywhere in J'm by tomorrow (Sunday) night. So a lot of people
didn't have heat, lights, or water for Shabbos, with temps
of about -2 to 8 C.
T-A was essentially closed on Thurs. Extensive flooding in
all directions.
I went to work on Wed and Thurs as usual. I had some real
headaches to and from work; I didn't think I'd make it home
at all on Wed nite. The office was a little quiet. I did
get a couple of good days work done! More of a problem of
power failures as the Electric Co. kept "remanaging" the
grid. (Power goes down for 5-20 secs and comes right back up
again. Works wonders for workstations, network links,
print queues, ...)
don feinberg
|
| I can give a first hand report from Jerusalem.
I left work on Wednesday at 16:30. By the time I had reached the
entrance to Jerusalem, the snow was really coming down, but the road
was still open (this was at about 18:00). By 19:00 the Tel-Aviv
Jerusalem highway was closed. My neighbor was caught on the Kastel, and
didn't get home until afte 23:00. My daughter attended a wedding that
evening. The Hupah was delayed until after midnight. The father of the
Chassan didn't arrive until after 2:00 in the morning (the Chassan is
from Bnei Brak). The wedding broke up at about 4:00.
Depending on the exact location, between 10-20 inches of snow fell on
Jerusalem. It was really beautiful. Needless to say all the children
were outside playing.
I didn't make it into Herzliya on Thursday. I took one look out the
window when I awoke at my normal time, and turned over and went back to
sleep.
The negative side to the snow was the unusual amount of disruption of
electricity. My home was without electricity for about 24 hours. Some
places didn't have any electricity for Shabbat as well. I am the
veteran of many snows in Jerusalem, but this has never happened before.
I believe that the electric company is mainly at fault by not having
trimmed the trees in anticipation of this problem (it is the
responsibility of the electric company to prune any trees which could
potentially cause disruption of electric service if branches were to
fall on electric lines).
This is the first major snow storm since 1980. There was a snow storm
in January of 1968 during which more snow fell.
Now, I'm back at work. The weather on Friday and Shabbat was warm
enough during the day to melt most of the snow. However, the streets
and pavements were quite slick at night and early morning due to
freezing in the sbu-zero temps at night.
Cb.
|
| As a kid growing up in upstate New York, I remember many winter mornings when I
would wake up, see fresh snow outside, and turn on the radio to hear whether or
not the schools were closed.
As an adult, I live and work in Jerusalem. On Thursday morning I woke up, saw
the fresh snow outside, turned on the radio and heard, "Schools are closed in
Jerusalem, Safed, ..."
Given the state of the roads, I decided to walk to work. (From my youth, I
knew how to dress properly for this kind of weather.) Only took me 40 minutes
to get here, including time to take a couple of pictures from the Tayelet.
(Jerusalem under a foot of snow is not something we get to see very often.)
Tree branches and tree trunks had snapped everywhere, under the weight of the
snow. They really look rather sad, especially as the melting snow exposes the
dead trees.
I'd guess that no more than half of the folks at the Jerusalem facility showed
up at all on Thursday, and most of them arrived late and left early. (No one
wanted to risk getting stranded, if the weather took a turn for the worse.)
Things are pretty much back to normal now, except for the folks who are still
without power. As of yesterday, the electric company said that some people in
the Jerusalem area wouldn't be reconnected until the middle of the week! It's
the older neighborhoods of Jerusalem (such as Rehavia, Talbieh, Kiryat Yovel)
that are most affected, along with some of the settlements in the Jerusalem
corridor. (I live in a newer neighborhood, with underground electric cables
that can't get hit by falling trees.) It's also still colder than normal, with
temperatures dropping down to (or even below) freezing at night.
According to last week's reports, this was the worst snowstorm to hit Israel
for 40 years. I, personally, would be quite happy to wait that long before
seeing anything like this again.
|
| On a light note:
Yesterday, after lunch, I took my wife, 2 kids and my mother and
up we went to Jerusalem. The weather was nice, sunny, with that
kind of winter warmth while you are in the sun...
We took the "cross-Samaria" Rd. (Chotse Shomron), until we reached
the Petach Tikvah Rd. and followed up to the Airport and the Tel-
Aviv=Jerusalem Rd. At our left, the Shomron hills, beginning to show
some green colour, thanks to the rain.
The green now is a new green, with a bit of yellow, the colour of
nature coming out of the draught of summer.
We took the Jerusalem Rd and, just after Sha'ar HaGay, the begining of
the ascent to Jerusalem (the last 30 Km.), we begun seeing white
patches among the trees.
Some people were standing by the road playing with snow.
We reached the Castel. The castel is the last high hill in the
road before Jerusalem. It is a strategic point, since from it you
control the access to the city.
The romans and crusaders also understood this, since this hill has had
a military garrison since roman times, and the crusaders built there a
Castle. Castel is a corruption of Castle.
In April 48, just by the end of the British mandate, Jews and Arabs were
fighting for this place. The winner would win Jerusalem. The arab
commander, Abd-El-Kader Al-Husseini, decided one night to check the
positions before the last attack. On the Castle a handful defenders
manned the trenches.
One of the sentinels saw someone moving and shot him down without knowing
whom he shot.
In the morning, when they saw that Al-Husseini was not coming back, the
arabs sent a patrol that found their commander dead.
The arab mobs, in grief for the loss of their commander, in a very
emotional move and against the exhortations of a few of the most
enlighted men at the battle site, took the body of their leader to
the Mosque of Al-Aksa, in the Temple Mount, were they performed an
almost royal funeral. However they disregarded the battleground,
which was recovered by the Jewish troops and held till today.
On the top of the fortifications today, as it did in 1948, flyes
an israeli flag, torn in half by bullets, signing our presence.
From the heights of the Castel, you see Motza and Motza Illit,
suburbs of Jerusalem, you see the high skyscrapers of the Hilton
and other hotels, you see Mevasseret Zion and Nebi Samuel.
The mount was covered by about 30 cm of snow, still white snow.
The fortifications and trenches were whitened with snow. All
around was covered with a white carpet, and to the east, the
golden buildings of Jerusalem, receiving the reddish glow of the
sunset. Martin (15) and Paula (11) looked like goats cavorting on
the snow. White snow and a charming witer view. A beautiful sight!
From there we went to Jerusalem - some 8-10 more Km, but the city
was already clean. We bought some falafel and came down, back to
Tel-Aviv.
Regrds,
Juan-Carlos
|