Last update - 00:00 31/01/2008
Jerusalem reopens traffic but keep schools closed as snow falls
By Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondent
After a second day of snowfall prompted a halt in all modes of transportation in Jerusalem on Thursday, by late morning major roadways leading to and from the capital were reopened to traffic and drivers in the city were given the go-ahead to use their vehicles again.
The Egged bus company - which earlier Thursday morning had canceled all of its lines both in the city and leading to and away - announced by late morning that its lines were to run as usual.
Earlier Thursday morning, the city announced that it was shutting down many of its basic services pending the end of the storm.
Classes in Jerusalem schools remained canceled for the day due to the snow. Deliberations in the all of the city's courts - including magistrate, district, supreme and national labor courts - were also canceled due to the weather.
Public transportation in the northern cities of Arad, Safed, Marom Hagalil, and in the central and northern Golan Heights remained suspended as of Thursday morning.
Jerusalem municipality officials expressed satisfaction Wednesday with the public response to the snowstorm. Jerusalemites kept their vehicles at home, significantly reducing the number of traffic jams in the city. "The Bush effect," officials termed the decline in vehicle traffic.
"The public was very obedient this time," a city official said. "We asked people not to use their cars inside the city due to potential traffic jams, but also because we wanted to prevent people from going out for a drive in the snow, getting into accidents and being hurt. So far this has been very rare."
The city is accustomed to dealing with the occasional heavy snowfall, and as of Wednesday afternoon there were few serious problems. However, sources in the city's situation room, opened in order to deal with the snowstorm, pointed out that the current one is a relatively
rare occurrence. "All snowstorms since 2003 lasted only 24 hours. This time it's forecasted to last 48 hours, so we were forced to call in reinforcements to drive the city's 100 snowplows nonstop until the snow stops."
Aviram Yekutiel and his fiancee Rahel, of Jerusalem's Ramot neighborhood, spent all of Wednesday morning on the phone trying to round up heavy vehicles to take their guests to their wedding in the evening. "We planned the wedding well before the snow," Rahel said Wednesday,
"but we decided to go with it, not ignore it."
The couple turned to various organizations, including Israel Rescue and Hatzalah (IRH), a volunteer emergency medical services organization that regularly assists Magen David Adom. The group promised to help bring their guests to the Ganei Ha'opera banquet hall in Givat Shaul.
"We invited 300 people. I hope most of them come despite the bad weather," Rahel said.
Meanwhile, Yad Sarah's transportation network took hundreds of people to city hospitals for dialysis, cancer and fertility treatments.
Many visitors converged on Sacher Park, which was covered in white. The municipality had declared a snowman-building contest, but there was not enough snow, so snowball-throwing and sledding on trash bags became more popular activities.
The Israel Manufacturers Association announced Wednesday that the snowstorm cost about NIS 25 million in lost revenue, or about 6 percent of daily industrial production, because only 10 to 20 percent of the city's industrial workers managed to come to work.