A minor gaffe by the New York Times

Review Set in Pennsylvania After 50-Mile Traffic Tie-Up - New York Times:
"About 200 tractor-trailers that had been diverted from Interstate 81 in Hamburg after it was closed nearly filled the parking lot of the Schuylkill Mall there on Friday night."

The sentence above appeared in a story datelined Hamburg, PA - maybe the first time such a story was filed with the Times. Unfortunately, they goofed when they identified the Schuylkill Mall as being in Hamburg. Our little town is on I-78 in Berks County, that mall is on I-81 in Schuylkill County - over 20 miles north up SR-61.

The storm coverage is fairly accurate, but fails to point out that the storm laid ice on the roads, then snow, then more ice. It has also included extreme cold except during the night of the storm when temperatures warmed enough to allow a period of sleet and freezing rain. Most of the time, though, it has been cold enough to keep salt from making much progress in melting ice. The icing was so bad that for a time I was contemplating crawling out a window to clear my front steps! The lock on the back door is frozen solid and won't turn and the front has a storm door that was blocked by ice. It took my landlord's wife and his son's girlfriend about 15 minutes to break loose enough ice to get my storm door open just halfway.

My landlord and his company plow snow when they aren't digging holes and hauling dirt and stone. I spoke to him Wednesday night about 8:00 PM when he was plowing snow in Hamburg. They were still at it at midday on Thursday. His wife told me that in addition to I-78 being closed, Old US-22 which parallels I-78 was reduced to a single lane in many places.

I just looked out the window towards I-78 a few minutes ago and the only vehicles I saw were two PennDoT plow trucks moving westbound.