Braving the weather

For those who braved the weather forecasts and came to work in Washington, D.C., Tuesday, it may have come as no surprise that the government closed early, at 2 p.m. What was a surprise was the short notice given to the closing -– it was known at 1 p.m. –- and the fact that all government agencies closed all at once. The rush home was on.

Some employees may remember the 1980s when government routinely did universal closing on snow days with traffic congestion clogging all highways and bus routes. In the mid-1990s, staggered closings were the order of the day in the nation's capital to relieve some of that congestion. Still, OPM deserves credit for letting employees leave earlier with the most severe icing expected later in the day. And D.C.'s Metro subway system moved the rush hour train schedule to 1 p.m. to be ready for the rush.

Washington got remnants of what occurred in the Midwest. For Feds who work in Chicago, the snowstorm reached near-blizzard conditions and more than 750 flights to O'Hare Airport were canceled.

So how was your trip home? Did you leave at 2 p.m., or did you continue to work later in the day to avoid the rush?