I woke up Saturday morning to snow galore. Beautiful, light, fluffy white snowflakes delicately falling from the sky. I was so excited. Then I tried to get in my car.

After using a mop, a broom, a cup and a shovel, I finally got my car out of the driveway and out onto the Lloyd Expressway. I was mortified.

Ice covered most of it, leaving only one side of it open – barely. I could hardly control my car, and I decided it wasn’t worth driving to work and risking my life. All weekend we heard reports of cars sliding off the roads and ending up in ditches.

One report said a child flew out of a car and into a ditch due to a weather induced traffic accident. I woke up Sunday to find  conditions were still the same, and Monday.

I’m from northern Indiana, and not only does my city of Kokomo prepare when it knows there’s a snow storm coming by salting the streets days in advance, it basically has salt trucks and snow plows out during the storm to make sure the streets are safe for driving within the next day. This did not even come close to happening in Evansville.

The city took a stance of ignoring that the storm happened, which couldn’t be more dangerous. I was shocked to learn that Evansville has a very small emergency weather budget, which means that it can’t really afford to take care of the snow and ice on the roadways.

Instead, it saves all of its money for the spring when Evansville starts getting floods.

While floods also need attention, ice and snow are just as dangerous. Using the “let it melt” method isn’t practical, as black ice is eventually created, and black ice is life threatening. The city of Evansville needs to find a way to dedicate more funds to emergency weather management or risk injuring more of its citizens.