Cars were trapped for days during last year's snowstorm in Jerusalem.
Once again, the Middle East is bracing for a major winter storm. Parts of ُTurkey, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories — areas already hard-hit by conflict — are expected to take a big blast of snow.
In Jerusalem, authorities are preparing for the worst after another snowstorm paralyzed the city last year.
Hours before that storm hit, my parents, who live in St. Louis, arrived in Jerusalem for a visit. I called them to reminisce.
“So, remember last year you came to visit me in Jerusalem and you arrived a couple hours before the huge snowstorm?” I said.
“Oh yeah,” my mom said. She asked a friend from Jerusalem how much snow was expected, but was that almost beside the point. "You know, it didn’t matter how much snow there was. It was just snowing. It was going to snow. It was a catastrophe."
Jerusalem, after all, is not Buffalo. Jerusalemites don’t own snow shovels or measure storms by how many inches are supposed to fall. When there’s any snow, the city practically shuts down. Last year, cars got stuck on the main road leading to Jerusalem. Drivers, including an Israeli lawmaker, were stuck on the road all night long. The army even had to come evacuate people.
Barry Lynn, a weather forecaster at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, is predicting a blizzard for Wednesday afternoon: up to 10 inches of snow on the ground, with possibly more snow on Thursday and Friday. And Saturday night, too. And next Wednesday.
This is the region’s third snowstorm in three years, a rarity that’s becoming more common. But Lynn says this storm in particular is "a potential weather disaster. It’s unusual in both its intensity and its length."
In the run up to the forecasted storm, pharmacies and supermarkets were packed with people stocking up on provisions. By late afternoon, there were slim pickings at one major downtown supermarket: just three lemons, two apples and two pomegranates left in the vegetable aisle.
Meanwhile, the city's war room, underneath city hall in an underground bunker, is preparing for the storm. The name is literal: Last time this room was manned around the clock was this summer, as Israel invaded Gaza and Hamas rockets were landing in the Jerusalem area.
A large screen on the wall shows live footage from some of the 400 cameras positioned throughout the city. These security cameras, which usually monitor things like clashes between Israelis and Palestinians, are going to be used to monitor where a tree has fallen on a power line or if snow has been cleared to allow for ambulances to reach the hospital, authorities say.
“It sounds crazy this is what we do for snow,” said Brachie Sprung, adviser to Jerusalem’s mayor. “You have to understand. Israelis are not used to this weather. We want to have the tools. We want to make sure we don’t have any loss of life.”
The Israeli military is preparing armored personnel carriers and snowplows for backup, and authorities say they may close all the main arteries into and out of Jerusalem. That could explain the heavy traffic that was heading toward Jerusalem on the day before the expected storm.
“It’s going to be a snow festival,” Sprung said. The silver lining of the intense preparation — and potential mess — is that people from around the country like to flock to Jerusalem to see the ancient city blanketed in snow. "Our city is so beautiful when it’s covered in a layer of white.”
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