China’s snow emergency

We felt lucky to be stranded at an airport where we had heat and meals. That was more than most than the thousands of stranded travelers in China. A lot of chaos between delays in flights. Passengers started to weigh their options. While I felt smug because of experiences back in Minnesota, coastal Shanghai isn’t used to this and inland it was much worse. Highways were closed, hundreds of thousands of people were camped out at train and bus stations. One bus that did try to leave slipped on a mountain road, killing 25 people. Premier Wen Jiabao went to Hunan to check out the situation and even his plane got diverted due to bad weather. Wen said we need to mobilize people to clear ice and snow on the roads. He also talked about getting power and heat working in other areas. China gets power from coal and transport delays have delayed shipments of coal to where it’s needed. Meanwhile, back on my plane, a three hour delay turned into 6 and then 8. finally we left, 9 hours after boarding.