Dee from the Desk: Coming out on top of snow
Now that all the snow has settled many people are looking to see how the state’s new governor weathered the storm.
Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo took precautions that other recent governor’s have not when she implemented a statewide travel ban that lasted almost twenty four hours. During the state’s last blizzard, Gov. Chafee strongly urged people to stay off the roads but never mandated it. And in 2010 none of us will ever forget the December debacle where school buses were stranded for hours. That was not even a blizzard but it was a heck of a storm that the state, under Gov. Carcieri, was ill prepared for. In the Blizzard of 2015 the state was prepared and announced the travel ban hours before it went into effect.
Some people criticized the move saying the government should not have the ability to restrict travel, others equated the decision as a so-called “no brainer.” By the end of the storm most people seemed to agree that the travel ban was effective and helped to get the state’s roads cleaned up and ready for motorists, although some continued to criticize on the premise of too much government control.
Gina Raimondo was not quite Gov. Garrahy in his red flannel shirt, but she did show the state a new side of herself. In her first press conference she came across as motherly. She was very centered on the safety of Rhode Islanders and had a certain affect that only a mother has. Throughout the whole storm, Raimondo kept that concerned mother part of herself but she also became more comfortable handling the situation and she became a leader. While she may have started nervous as the storm approached, she quickly adapted to the role.
The storm and her handling of it was a huge success on her part and likely improved her approval rating among those who didn’t vote for her. While it is a difficult thing to manage a massive snow storm in her first three weeks in office, it did give the new governor a chance to show the state what she is made of.
At the same time some people were put into difficult situations as their employers demanded they be at work although they were not considered exempt from the travel ban. In these cases the employers should have heeded the governor’s warning and made reasonable accommodations for these employees. Unfortunately, some companies just don’t operate like that in the private sector. As a result some people attempting to drive in the height of the storm may have been stopped by police or ticketed. Maybe the police should have fined the business instead because it puts people in a tough place; lose your job or obey the ban. Either way, only one driver was arrested for violating the ban, and that driver was traveling more than 80 mph on the highway during the ban.
The driving ban also cut down on accidents, while the police dealt with a significant number of accidents prior to the ban being implemented, there were none after it went into effect.
While the storm may be a pain for most Rhode Islanders, it did put the state’s new leaders to the test and most people seem to be satisfied with how the state handled the storm and the clean up. Politically speaking the storm was a huge win for the new administration, who now can point to the Blizzard of 2015 as an accomplishment under their belt. Now let’s see how they handle
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