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Tuesday, December 27

"Authorities never expected the impacts to be as bad as they were." A symbolic snow disaster.

The quote is from Buffalo’s no stranger to snow. Why was the storm so deadly? - The Washington Post - December 27, 2022.  (Access to the report at WaPo is free; it's also published here: Buffalo’s no stranger to snow. Why was the storm so deadly? (msn.com)

We've seen the pattern before in other types of natural disasters that were worsened by poorly conceived attempts at preparedness. (Remember this?) 

But what WaPo reporters Brianna Sacks and Emily Wax-Thibodeaux learned about Buffalo's preparations for a historic blizzard is perfectly symbolic of how Europe got into such a jam this year. Governments did projections of the impacts of making financial war on Russia but overlooked so many factors they were left wide open to a series of disasters.

So, in addition to the number of lives it took, a snowstorm in America serves as a warning about the limitations of projections and the dire consequences of snubbing common sense.  

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