Photo by urbandispute

That there is a $120,000 snow melter. With that apparatus a body can melt 10 dump truck loads of snow at a time — approximately the amount of snow I shoveled off my walkway each day. As of last week, this infernal snow engine was missing in action, as Tom Sherwood reported. It had fallen into disuse and maybe disrepair and slipped out of the memory of most everyone but Tom Sherwood. Last night, finally, the snow melter was spotted melting snow in Northwest.

It goes to show that the best-laid plans of mice and men can be buried under two-and-a-half feet of snow. The problem with resolutions by the D.C. Council and the District Department of Transportation to do better — to build better contingency plans should the city see another snowpocalypse — is that these plans never seem to flow between administrations.

Here, for example, is a machine the city bought back in 2003. To put away for a snowy day. It was purchased for the express purpose of melting massive quantities of snow: a disaster response vehicle of sorts. Yet just a few years later, the city had apparently forgotten it. Now we’re a day away from March and the thing’s just getting exercise; the “Just for You D.C.” tag on that snow melter reads like a taunt. I welcome disaster planning from the Council and other city agencies, but plans don’t much matter when they are not implemented by agile leadership.