Yes, it's winter. Thousands of visitors to the Tahoe basin found out the hard way that keeping a weather eye pays dividends. If one decides not to pay attention, things get a little dicey on Interstate 80 on the way down the mountain. As the weekend came to an end, all the visitors who clamored up the hill for some powder skiing, turned their vehicles west on Highway 80- all at the same time.
Then Mother nature intervened: dumping huge amounts of powder across the foothills on both sides of the highway: results- stopped traffic. Results: long delays. Results frustration. Results: cursing. Results battered mental states. And then calTrans shut down the highway in both directions.
Results-even longer delays getting home to the Central Valley and the Left Coast.
Most of the inconvenience could have been avoided if only. If only travelers had taken a few precautions: leave earlier; leave later. Carry chains/cables. Fill up the gas tank. Read weather reports-take weather into consideration: Hey, it's the Sierra-winter happens every year about this time, and it could care less about your schedule.
Will they ever learn?
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