We've gotten soft

A while ago, a friend of mine shared a link with me that listed Corvallis as the "least likely community in America to suffer a natural disaster."  I think maybe we've gotten a little too comfortable with our surroundings.

Everyone in Oregon knows that when it snows in Portland, or anywhere in the Willamette Valley for that matter, people freak the hell out.  The news crews scramble every available reporter to every overpass, hill, pretty looking snow covered bush and park with kids building snowmen in a fifty mile radius.  They give cute names like "winter blast 2012" to the weather system, then fill up 25 of the available 30 minutes with forecasts, coverage, and viewer photos of animals in an inch of snow.  That's a whole 'nother blog post right there - people taking completely uninteresting pictures of their animals and submitting them to news stations. 

The forecasts are what really kill me though.  They usually start out saying "we've got a very good chance of seeing some white stuff come down...as much as a foot in some areas!"  Everyone goes apeshit at this point, thinking they live in the area that will get a foot of snow.  Let's say this happened during the 4 o'clock news.  (Side note:  I saw a news station tout itself as the "Most watched news at 4!"  This just means you're popular with people who likely don't have jobs.  Congrats!) By the 5 o'clock news, the "chief meteorologist" will say "This system is really unstable, so it's hard to predict, but the possibility is still there for ten to twelve inches."  At 6 o'clock, they'll say "we're still tracking this storm, and there's a lot of variables, but I'll have a much more detailed forecast by 11.  So then you watch Jeopardy! and get your kids tucked into bed, maybe watch a little CSI: NY or NCIS: LA or HIMYM or some other show with an annoying acronym, and now it's time for the 11 pm news.  Surprise!  The system stalled out, and now we're looking at anywhere from a light dusting to two inches in higher elevations.  This happens every damn time, and I'm sick of it because I'm a huge sucker that, like everyone else, loves it when it snows around here.  I want it to happen so badly, that I'm getting out of bed three times a night to peek out the window like an 8 year old who doesn't want to go to school the next day.  And Rod Hill or Seth Wayne or Joseph Calbreath is always letting me down. 

I'm not the only sucker though.  School districts all over the area close schools for a trace amount of snow.  I swear that every school superintendent and decision maker in this state must live on Mount Crumpit.  OSU was on a two hour delay Tuesday, and I swear to you I made it to work faster than I have in months because the roads were clear and everyone else was at home.  Wednesday was the kicker.  Schools were on delay again because of the conditions, but it was 40 degrees!  I understand that there's probably a small (SMALL!) group of students/faculty that live in outlying areas of higher elevation that may need to allot extra time to get into town, but come on!  We essentially delayed classes because of a big rainstorm.  This is OREGON.  It rains like 66% of the time during the winter!

Of course I write this the day that someones car is swept out of a grocery store parking lot and into a creek, killing at least one person.  I still chalk that one up to operator error more than mother nature.  That never would've happened at a Market of Choice is all I'm saying.  Also, this is happening, so maybe the rain is a bit extreme....but still none of this should cause the two hour delay of a major public university.  These are isolated incidents....it's not like Highway's 34 and 20 are covered in water and there's no access to the school.  Yet.

A further example of the wussification of Oregon could be found later Wednesday when Kerr Administration Building was closed for a bomb scare.  It turned out to be a cardboard box filled with surplus computer equipment.  My question is "what made this package suspicious?"  If I saw a cardboard box anywhere in this building I wouldn't think twice about it.  If I saw one anywhere on campus I wouldn't think twice about it.  Now, if I was a secret service agent or police officer and it was during an event that would have some high profile person there (and no, I don't think the president of Oregon State qualifies as high profile - and besides he was in Portland on business yesterday.  A bomber would've known this) then maybe I get a little jumpy about a box.  But if the only thing that made this box suspicious was that it didn't say "surplus computer equipment" on it, then I think we're just getting a little too paranoid around here.