Day 182: The Iceman Cometh-Snowpocalypse 2011.

     On January 31, 2011, the city of Chicago was in full-blown crisis mode, poring over weather reports, radar, and consuming forecasts like an addict.  All of this was in response to a massive storm that was coming across the country and had already dumped large amounts of snow in localities throughout the country.  In response to this, the city started to mobilize its fleet of trucks, so as to avoid a similar disaster to what happened in 1979 when Mike Bilandic claimed that the weather was under control(a claim which ended up costing him his job).  The next day, the preparations continued in earnest, with many businesses and institutions opting to close(including the Field Museum, Adler Planetarium, and the rest of the Museum Campus[which meant that if people wanted to see the remains of Bushman or the other stuffed animals, or even grab a hot dog outside, they were plum out of luck{though they could see the Sundial, Copernicus statue, Kosciuszko statue, Man with Fish, and Kelpies just fine}])  Along with that, the decision was made by the school district to close down all schools for the first time since the 1999 blizzard came to town.

     By 4:30 PM on February 1, the storm had reached Chicago and attained blizzard status.  The wind gusts were approaching and exceeding 35 miles per hour, and weather spotters were beginning to diagnose white-out conditions on the North Side of town.  Later on that day, Lake Shore Drive was shut down, albeit slightly too late for some motorists, as many people were stuck in their cars for up to 12 hours waiting for assistance to arrive.  There were some places up on the North Side where the placement of the high-rises in relation to the Lake made the streets into quasi-wind tunnels, restricting movement to a snail's pace when walking against the wind.

     Beyond that, there were several other affects that the storm had.  Several of the colleges and universities throughout the city closed their doors on February 2, and the storm also did damage to Wrigley Field(home of the Cubs) and the switching mechanisms on some of the Red Line tracks.  The storm also forced the cancellation of mail delivery the next day, as well as the cancellation of Amtrak trains leaving the city and over 1,300 flights out of O'Hare and Midway.  When the snow finally cleared, the city had experienced its third highest snow-fall total ever, but suffered no lasting damage from the Great Blizzard of 2011.