Southern Ice Storm!

As I'm sure you all know, those of us in the southeastern US are sort of iced into our houses at the moment. One of my coworkers had to take a blowdryer to his front door just to get out. I'm sure all of you up north are thumbing your noses at us for our ice and snow-related closedown, but I thought I would share some things with those of you in snow-having states.

1. It's not really the snow part people are afraid of as much as the ice. It doesn't usually get cold enough down here for it to only be snow. Our winter storms that involve freezing or frozen precipitation almost always include freezing rain or sleet before the snow. It's almost never just snow. Then, when the snow mostly melts in the afternoon and refreezes at night, we're back to an ice issue.
     a. We have lots of pine trees. They accumulate ice, then bend over, then snap and fall. They often block roads, take out power lines, and crush houses and cars. They're not trees that function well in ice storms because almost all of their weight is at the top.
     b. People down here don't know how to handle it if they hit a patch of ice in their car.

2. School districts' primary reasons for closing down are almost always school bus safety. Down south, we have a lot of dirt roads and school buses can't navigate them very well when they are icy. Icy mud and school buses don't mix. Our roads also aren't constructed to be friendly for winter weather. A school district I used to work for didn't shut the district down for ice once and ended up with a school bus embedded into an apartment complex when it slid off of a bridge. Not pretty.
     a. School districts also get a lot of flack when they close down too early or too late. There is a lot of pressure on them coming from both directions.

3. We flat out do not have the infrastructure to handle it.
     a. Our roads are almost all crowned or dirt and mostly have drainage ditches beside them. It's a good recipe for sliding into a ditch.
     b. Our power lines are primarily not buried. They are above ground and vulnerable to ice buildup and falling trees.
     c. We do not have salt or sand trucks. We don't even have the salt or the sand. There are no plows. The police and emergency vehicles do not have snow tires.
     d. Our pipes aren't buried as deeply as those up north, nor are they insulated as well. Pipes freeze, then burst and the resultant water damage is generally bad.
     e. Most people do not posses an ice scraper, rock salt, or a snow shovel. It's hazardous just getting out of our houses.
     f. Most people don't have garages for their cars. Ice and snow build up on the vehicles sometimes even if they are under a carport.

So, when people are judging us down south, please take these kinds of things into account. A lot of them are things we couldn't change even if we wanted to.

One More Free Promotion

Hello, everyone! I'm doing one more two day free book promotion. Hopefully Forging the Bond will get some good downloads. I also am hoping you all are enjoying the book. If you loved it, hated it, or found something specifically troublesome, I would love to hear from you. Your feedback helps me write better books. Send me a message, shoot me an email, comment away. I appreciate every bit. I'm loving on all 600+ folks who have downloaded the book so far. The book has been out for a little over a month now, so lets see how it does!