[PeppyGPhiB]

OK, OK, I've been out of town for the past 10 days, so I'm just responding to this now.

I'll have you know that we made several trips from Kenmore to Bellevue after the snow and were fine. The only time my Honda Civic got stuck was in my mom's neighborhood because it hadn't been plowed.

The state does NOT use salt on I-405 or I-5. It uses SAND and liquid de-icer, which follow in a truck behind the plowers. In the mountains they might use salt, but I know they also use sand. In addition to the hazards to our waterways, which you know we have lots of here, salt is also very corrosive and creates lots of damage to cars and roads. Anyway, all the salt in the world would not have helped us after this storm. We got 16 inches of snow here - the roads needed to be plowed, not salted! The biggest hazard on the roads in this storm was all of the snow being tossed around on the freeways that hadn't been plowed yet. It was the biggest snow storm in decades, and as you noted, we don't get that kind of weather here often enough to warrant spending big bucks on more plowers. So is it really that surprising that we weren't prepared to deal with it? All of us locals know that Seattle is filled with hills akin to San Francisco - four wheel drives, salt, sand and chains are great, but it would take a miracle for most to get up our hills. Most of us just stayed put and worked from home if we could. I was happy the power stayed on!

Anyway, don't you live in Redmond? I work in Seattle, but live on the Eastside just like you and therefore that's what I cared the most about. Mayor Nickels is a joke and I hope the city votes him out this year, but in the end they're the ones that have to live with him. If you're unhappy with the roads in Redmond, blame Microsoft.