sunny Spain

[stewartwillsher]

https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/01/07/in ... 76727.html

Just been watching national news on TV.
There will be an enquiry. Oh good.
Could be something to do with it being weekend after a major national holiday, so all services on hold, eh?
No doubt, lessons will be learned. :roll:
Just hope the kids and elderly were looked after OK.
Eighteen hours stuck in a car (or over a thousand) is not good. :thumbdown:

 

[stewartwillsher]

Re: sunny Spain - blame game

Slopey shoulders - everyone blaming everybody else as usual. :roll:

https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/01/08/in ... 77171.html

 

[DKZ5745]

I thought it was just England that fell to bits when there was anything more than 1mm of the white stuff

 

[stewartwillsher]

Many areas of Spain are at an altitude of over 1,000 metres and often have a harsh winter.
The strategy is normally to put road blocks in place where a stretch of road has a predicted imminent snowfall, where you have to show you are carrying chains, and may be asked to fit them there and then before proceeding.
No chains and you are likely to be turned back.
We carry a set in our long haul motor for winter journeys and only once, heading North West, have we been asked to show them; and then fortunately we had clear roads but quite a bit of deep snow at the roadsides in places, so not needed.

It seems that what happened here was that for a short while the toll motorway to the NW of Madrid (Autopista) was closed, then re-opened allowing vehicles without chains onto it.
Although there were snow clearing machines in use, the amount of new snow falling was too much for them.
At this point they lost the plot as the procedures did not cope with the scenario.
So we had over a thousand vehicles and their drivers/occupants ill-prepared and on a stretch of motorway that was inundated with fresh snow, all the folk returning from their holidays.
Panic stations!
The military then set out to try and sort it and support the stranded motorists.
Unfortunately, the mess took up to eighteen hours to clear.

We have a sub-tropical micro climate and at 550 metres above sea level rarely get snow.
In twelve years we have had three occasions where it settled for a few hours, the deepest being 10th Jan 2010, when we did not attempt to get up our sloping car park to go anywhere. [photo attached]

 

[stewartwillsher]

A head might roll; but whose? :eusa-whistle:

https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/01/09/in ... 80619.html