Editorial | The Valentine's Day Nightmare

Philadelphia Inquirer, The, February, 2007

It's a good thing that winter is nearly over. Maybe by next winter, Pennsylvania officials will have a clue who's in charge during a snowstorm.

Legislative hearings on the state's dismal response to the Valentine's Day storm bred little confidence that emergency officials have a plan for preventing another disaster. Apologies for the snafus that turned a stubborn storm into a crisis were plentiful, but proposed solutions were hard to find. House and Senate panels examined how PennDot, state police and the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency allowed hundreds of motorists to become stranded on Interstates 78, 81 and 80, some for as much as 24 hours.

"Almost everybody dropped the ball," said State Sen. Roger Madigan (R., Bradford). Yep.

After monumental foul-ups like this, someone's head usually rolls. The problem in this case is a target-rich environment of heads. It's hard to figure ...