Blizzard Effectively Shuts Down Business in London

London, England, which is not a particularly dry place nor a particular warm one, should have apparently been better prepared to deal with the effects of a blizzard on Monday but, as it stands, the snow storm that hit the city paralyzed business and transportation in the country’s largest city. The largest snow storm in 18 years hit London on Monday and caused an estimated 6 million people to skip work. The storm also apparently ground transportation to a halt, with buses, subways and airliners sitting idly by as local and international travelers were forced to stay put and business was effectively shut down as well.

Blame was roundly passed around by transportation officials, business leaders and local authorities, all of whom seemed to blame others for failing to properly prepare for the storm, which had been in the pipeline and predicted for quite some time before actually dumping 8 inches of snow on London on Sunday and Monday. Said John Ransford, chief executive of Britain’s Local Government Association, "We can’t change nature and if nature does this to us we have a problem." Meanwhile, Stephen Alambritis, who is with the Federation of Small Businesses in England, said "One of the world’s biggest economies should not be grinding to halt."

Perhaps the biggest irony in the whole story is that London’s bus service, which operated without fail during World War II and was put on hold for only an hour after the city’s 2005 terrorist attacks, was also brought to a halt by the snow which, by the standards of the Northeast U.S. was merely a "light dusting." David Frost (the name is not an attempt at a pun), director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, noted that the lack of preparation was inexcusable. Said Frost, "It was hardly a surprise when we pulled back the curtains yesterday morning. But, I think that there is complacency because we’re told that we’ll have steadily rising temperatures as a result of climate change." Somewhere, folks in Buffalo, NY are snickering to themselves.