Government = words/Private businesses = actions

Here's a great story on how private business know how to deal with emergency situations vs the governments desire that everyone hunker down and stay indoors while the government does what it does best......talk.

Story here

Sort of like "snow emergencies" you all stay off of the roads and we'll, well, do nothing for awhile, but you better not try to do anything for yourself!

Snow emergency II

As a follow up to a previous post;

Here's the logical conclusion to making our county Sheriff's....weather men.

This is from a letter to the editor of the Athens News recently:

"I think a Level 3 snow emergency should have been issued on the evening of Tuesday, Jan. 27, because the effects of the ice storm were already in place. Furthermore, the storm could be seen on Doppler radar, as well as the winter storm warning scrolling across our television screens and being sent as text messages.
Some of my friends had taken their children to evening activities, and I began to hear their stories about the awful conditions of the roads as they were driving home. The hill that leads up to Wonder Hills was a slab of ice. It was also dark, making matters much worse.
Can anyone tell me why Sheriff Pat Kelly waited until Wednesday morning? I would like to know. People could have been involved in serious accidents on Tuesday evening. We all know that evenings are the times when children are being taken back and forth to activities."

This person could have signed this "helpless in Athens"

So, these people know it's bad outside and they wait for the Sheriff to tell them if it's safe to go outside or not. They are watching the radar and still go out, just because the Sheriff hasn't declared a level 3. So much for thinking for yourself or being accountable for your own actions.

I wonder what our founding fathers would think of us now, they fought for freedom, in the dead of winter, and we've turned into a nation of people that can't think for ourselves....we want our local Sheriff to tell us if we can go outside or not....and if it's slippery outside and he didn't tell us (even though it's the middle of winter) shame on him!

As far as the authority to declare a "snow emergency", it's made up. There is no specific law that allows this. The law that the Attorneys General mention are 311.07 and 311.08. There's nothing pertaining to "snow emergencies" It's a real stretch to even make it fit under the "preserve the public peace" generic, cover it all words in the ORC.

How did we get from the ORC general statement of preserving the peace to allowing the Sheriff to stop traffic on all roadways in a county?

A morphing action of various Attorney's General decisions.

"1958 Op. Att’y Gen. No. 3039, p. 676; a county sheriff’s duty to preserve the public peace
authorizes him to keep the public highways free of damaged automobiles and remove injured and unconscious motorists and other persons from such highways"

1987 Op. Att’y Gen. No. 87-099 at 2-658; 1986 Op. Att’y Gen.
No. 86-023 at 2-121. “It is evident, therefore, that the sheriff’s duty to ‘preserve the public
peace’ under R.C. 311.07 [and R.C. 311.08] permits him, in the appropriate circumstances, and
in the exercise of a reasonable discretion, to take those actions reasonably necessary to protect the general public welfare.”

1997 Op. Att’y
"Gen. No. 97-015 (a county sheriff may, pursuant to R.C. 311.07 and R.C. 311.08, declare a snow emergency and temporarily close state roads and municipal streets within his jurisdiction when such action is reasonably necessary for the preservation of the public peace"

As far as which roads a Sheriff may close, it's clear that he can close any road he chooses.

http://www.ag.state.oh.us/legal/opinions/1997/97-015.htm

"Moreover, under the rationale used in 1986 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 86-023, there is no reasonable basis for distinguishing between the different types of roads and streets that are located within the county. As stated in the opinion, "_[t]he sheriff is the chief law enforcement officer in the county, with jurisdiction coextensive with the county, including all municipalities and townships._" 1986 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 86-023 at 2-120 (quoting In re Sulzmann, 125 Ohio St. 594, 597, 183 N.E. 531, 532 (1932)); see R.C. 2935.03(A). Accordingly, a county sheriff's duty to "preserve the public peace" extends throughout the entire county. As such, the county sheriff is not only required to "preserve the public peace" on county and township roads during a snow emergency, but is also required to do the same on state roads and municipal streets. Because the power to "preserve the public peace" includes the authority to take those steps reasonably necessary to protect and preserve the safety of the traveling public, 1986 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 86-023 at 2-121, the county sheriff may, pursuant to R.C. 311.07 and R.C. 311.08, declare a snow emergency and temporarily close the state roads and municipal streets within his jurisdiction when such action is reasonably necessary for the preservation of the public peace.2"

Not sure why we are letting our Attorneys General make laws when our legislature should be making specific laws, but there it is.

Level 3 "snow emergency"

"Level 3 Snow Emergency: All roadways are closed to non-emergency personnel. No one else should be out during these conditions unless it is absolutely necessary to travel. All employees should contact their employers to see if they should report to work. Those traveling on the roadways may be subject to arrest."

Some thoughts on this:

• There is no consistency between the levels in the different counties. Meigs (where men are still men) had no declared "emergency", though it neighbors Athens county which had a level 3, how could that be?
• Athens county has a history of inflating this "snow emergency" level in the past. Once we were in a store in Athens and they started telling us we needed to leave because we were under a level 3 emergency. It hadn't even started snowing yet! So, our new Sheriff is an improvement in this regard. He actually waited until we had winter conditions in ...um...winter. I had a fellow at work tell me yesterday that Athens county is really bad. I asked him how he knew that and he said he heard it on the news that we were under a "level 3". I explained that every time it snows more than 2 inches we are under a level 3 and the news doesn't really understand the history. But since it's on the "news" it must be true. Kirk Greenfield (WTAP's Meteorologist) has taken great umbrage at my comments on WTAP.com about the "snow emergency" inflation in Athens County. His assumption was since Athens County was under a level 3, it must have been a lot worse than other local counties. This is the wrong assumption due to the above comments.
• The County Engineer would always prefer that we don't drive on the roads anytime it snows. The Sheriff needs to take this into account when he makes his decision under pressure from the Engineers office. (Come to think of it, if they could keep those pesky vehicles off the roads all year long, we'd never have a pot-hole problem.)
• There have been times where locals (driving "illegally" in a "level 3") have cut trees out of the road so the county's snow plows can make it through. I also know of an instance where "illegal" drivers pulled a Township truck from being stuck over a snow covered bank.
• We are the ones that have to attend to elderly neighbors who have no power. Generators run on gasoline. Gasoline is sold a various locations. One has to drive to get there.
• One has to drive to cut the trees off of parent's houses.
• One has to drive to take a load of firewood to neighbors who now have no electric, hence no heat.

Have we even thought about the consequences if people actually listened to the Sheriff (it's the county engineer that prods this decision, by the way) when he "declares" a "snow emergency"?

• Most commerce in southeastern Ohio would cease. We have rt 7, 50 and 33 all major highways running through Athens county. If we all followed the "rules" every semi truck (along with every car/truck heading from / to work) would stop at the county lines. How much snow removal would be happening around traffic jams.
• If we all followed the "rules" local elderly people would have died from the cold. We haven't seen the county trucks delivering firewood or meals on wheels delivering meals. Neighbors should be allowed (and if not allowed, do it anyway) to help their neighbors.
• If we followed the rules we'd have people working 24-36 hours because no one comes to work to relieve them.
• In this slow economy we are going to tell people not to go to work unless it's necessary? We don't get paid unless we go to work. Work is necessary from an economic point of view no matter what.

So, while the government and the media try to make us into whimpering, thumb sucking in the corner adolescents........some of us ignore the rules and act like men.

If we followed the "rules" we'd have a real snow emergency.

I've got an idea for Kirk Greenfield. Instead of giving the population the impression that Athens county is a lot worse off than all the neighboring counties, maybe he should ask why that all winter storms are worse in Athens county, because their "snow emergency" levels are always higher than our neighbors in bordering counties....you'd think studying this phenomenon would be a meteorologist's dream.

Got to go now, have to refill the generator, put wood in the stove. I haven't seen the government here offering to do that for me, yet.

We've turned into a nation of wimps.