This has been making the e-mail rounds up here on the northern plains this week, as a sort of response to some of the rhetoric and political posturing connected with the hurricanes. It’s worth passing along – take it for what it’s worth:

For those of you who are not aware, North Dakota and southwestern Montana got hit with their first blizzardof the season a couple of weeks ago. The following text is from county emergency manager out in the western part of North Dakota state after the storm.

WEATHER BULLETIN

Up here in the Northern Plains we just recovered from a Historic event — may I even say a “Weather Event” of “Biblical Proportions” — with a historic blizzard of up to 24″ inches of snow and winds to 50 MPH that broke trees in half, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed all roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10’s of thousands.

George Bush did not come….FEMA staged nothing….No one howled for the government…No one even uttered an expletive on TV…Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards…..No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House….No news anchors moved in.

We just melted snow for water, sent out caravans to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars, fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Aladdin lamps and put on an extra layer of clothes.

Even though a Category “5” blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early…we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves.

Everybody is fine.

Why the differences? Admittedly, after a blizzard your house is (usually) still standing (if the weight of snow doesn’t collapse the roof).

Another critical difference that the Chief has noted is that the presence of cold harsh winters tends to filter out a lot of riff-raff! I know, some eastern states get lots of snow – but generally not with the extreme cold that we have out here on the northern plains. This combination does seem to move winter into a whole new dimension.