Photo by tracktwentynine.

The region has now broken the all-time snow record, but that hasn’t stopped criticism of nearly every government response, from plowing to transportation to trash collection. We need to be patient with authorities. What separates some agencies from others, however, is the degree of communication, and there WMATA earns a few slaps on the wrist.

Chris Matthews criticized DC’s snow handling, with support from Councilmember Harry Thomas, Jr. (Ward 5) who chastised the Mayor for not having “coordinated” with Councilmembers. Matthews said, “We had the weather of Buffalo with the snowplowing capability of Miami.”

That’s unfair. If we had the snowplowing capability of Miami, everything would have been closed all last week after the light snow of the previous weekend. As Michael Dresser noted, we don’t have Buffalo’s snow removal equipment, and machines like high-capacity snowblowers are “fiendishly expensive.”

Mike DeBonis isn’t amused by Councilmembers’ “armchair Mayoring”. Thomas, Marion Barry, and Kwame Brown all sent out press releases about how they would have done things differently, such as whether and how quickly to ask for federal aid. DeBonis praises one Councilmember’s reaction: Tommy Wells asked constituents to send in reports of streets needing plowing, so his office could coordinate with the Mayor’s to ensure that nobody gets missed.

The whining wasn’t limited to national media figures who never otherwise pay attention to local issues or Councilmembers with a political axe to grind. DPW did a proactive job emailing every neighborhood listserv about trash collection, but many weren’t satisfied. Residents with alley collections were asked to put trash out at the curb instead of behind the house; on the Brightwood list, resident Keith replied,

This is the single most ridiculous email I have read yet. If your trucks can’t get down the alley’s to collect the trash, how do you expect people to get out there and get their trash or super cans to the front? Over 3 1/2 feet of solid snow/ice piled up to the front door from the plows! Maybe you should take a drive down 14th street and come to see for yourself what a pathetic job has been done on our streets. … Now you want US to put our cans in front for an “effort” get a life buddy. My trash can just pile up until which time your people can get out of the truck and do their job.

But Beth retorted:

All you people who are whining about having to take a trash bag out to the front of your house need to get over yourselves. This is a series of storms of historic proportions — yes, our normal systems are not adequate to ensure smooth operations and everyone’s convenience. An awful lot of people have been working really hard to alleviate the storm’s affects. Do you really want DC to spend the money to be ready every year for storms that come to this region once a century?

Fortunately, most residents of Brightwood agreed with Beth. Most residents are coping with the snow and being patient.

Metro, too, deserves our patience. Their infrastructure is not set up to operate in snow of this volume. Many other cities have more heating systems to handle snow, but those areas expect this kind of weather and spend money to plan for it. The problem with unpredictable weather, and the danger of even more unpredictable storms in the future due to climate change, is that we’re not expecting it. If we knew this would happen next year, maybe the federal government could provide some of the $100 million it loses each day it’s closed to bolster our transit systems’ snowproofing.

Metro had to single-track across most of the system because they stored trains underground on other tracks. That caused substantial delays; a friend who commutes from Woodley Park downtown reports that on Tuesday, he had to wait about an hour and a half for a train that wasn’t already jam-packed full.

Some of you have criticized the underground storage. Metro says that “Metro is storing almost half of its rail fleet underground to help protect the rail cars from the damage caused by ice and snow.” I’m not a rail operations expert, but would just point out the New York City does the same thing; they just have express tracks, allowing them to keep running two-way service while storing cars.

Where Metro differed from other agencies was in its level of communication. DDOT put out several press releases each day, and Mayor Fenty was constantly on television and quoted in the press. John Catoe wasn’t nearly so visible. It’s true that Fenty can go overboard with his media visibility at times, but during this storm, that was reassuring.

Metro’s news announcements did note that there would be long headways, but the service information page does not. The news releases also didn’t explain the single-tracking until Wednesday.

It seems Metro could have done more to inform riders that trains were not running frequently, and explain why. At this point, they’re still keeping us informed about the current service, but many people have been asking on neighborhood listservs, when does Metro currently expect to have more service running?

The people who really needed better communication were the passengers on the Blue Line train that hit a wire. Bright sparks “started spewing across the … window,” one witness told the Post, and the car began filling with smoke.

Monica Thompson, 43, said that after the train stopped passengers tried contacting the operator on the intercom system but failed to gain any insight into their fate.

“We’re underground and you’re not telling us anything to ease our mind. The first thing people thought was, ‘Oh my God, we’re going to die,’ ” she said. “People could have gotten trampled.”

Tatum and others said that for the first half-hour, the only word from the train operator was, “Stand by, customers, stand by,” and, “We will move momentarily.”

“After almost 30 minutes, smoke, sparks, hysteria, we find out what happened — we hit a wire. WHAT??” Tatum wrote.

The train operator was almost surely spending his time trying to figure out what happened, what to do, and whether people were safe, which are the most important. When there’s a major car or truck fire on the highway, the police don’t manage to notify everyone, either. However, passengers were also understandably panicked and “stand by” is just not sufficient. The train operator could have at least shared something, like “the train is not on fire,” or whatever he did know.

It would be helpful to get a better account in the coming weeks about what Metro’s train operators usually know in a situation like this, and whether they have the time or the information to share more with passengers. Communication shouldn’t be the lowest priority.