Ready for the next big storm

They prowl on cold, wintry nights. While the world sleeps, they cruise frigid, lonely roads. They are Montgomery County's Inclement Weather Team, a nine-person squad that decides the fate of the county's thousands of schoolchildren every time the unexpected happens, from snowstorms to hurricanes.

Decision-making like this is often difficult in a large county. "No matter what you do, someone's not pleased," says Dr. Stephen Raucher, head of the Inclement Weather Team (IWT). The team's hours are demanding, and each member of the team has a day job as well. Dr. Raucher is Director of the Department of Transportation, three of the team members work for him, and five are school-bus depot managers.

But the IWT puts aside all of their normal concerns when a storm is bearing down on Montgomery County. "One way or another, we get the word that's something's up and we mobilize," says Dr. Raucher. Not even chronically sleep-deprived high school students have to be awake and active as early as the IWT. "We have to get out between three and four in the morning. Each person has a prescribed area to drive, and they all communicate to me in the [Department of Transportation] office what they see to me on the road," he explains. "We look at road conditions, sidewalks - is there a safe place for kids to walk?"

After spending an hour from three to four a.m. surveying the roads, the eight other members of the team join Dr. Raucher back at the office and get ready to make a final decision. They survey Bob Ryan's Four Winds Network, AccuWeather Forcasts, and even real-time satellite pictures of the Washington area – anything that will help them get an idea of the kind of storm they're facing. "We also communicate with all the surrounding jurisdictions. If it's coming from the south we have no objection to calling Richmond," says Dr. Raucher.

By about four-thirty in the morning the IWT consolidates all of that information and makes a recommendation to the superintendent. Dr. Weast might approve their suggestion or send it back with questions. Once a final decision is made, the IWT then has the responsibility of quickly getting the word out. "The same team communicates that to all the radio stations and television stations. Its set up so that no student can call a radio station and close the schools. We have passwords," says Dr. Racuher.

Todd Watkins is the MCPS Bus Operations Manager, and a veteran member of the IWT. He describes some of the tough working conditions that IWT members often face. "We hit the roads at about three AM. If its an on-the-fence call and conditions keep changing, we might have to be in the office until the last school bus gets in at seven at night."

According to Dr. Raucher, it is rarely easy to make a decision that satisfies everyone. "We are a county-wide school system, so we make the decision based on the whole county," he says. "Sometimes we close because it's icy in Damascus and it's only wet in Silver Spring. It wouldn't be fair to close Damascus and have Blair open."

With nearly 160,000 students and staff in MCPS, the IWT knows that they have a lot of responsibility riding on their shoulders. "The biggest problem we have is not with difficult years, but with the particular storm. Sometimes everything looks fine at four a.m. but a big storm is predicted at seven. You're totally going on forecasts and you really hope you get it right," says Dr. Raucher.

"You can draw criticism on a questionable call from erring on the side of safety or on the other side," Watkins says. "If you close school and it turns out you didn't need to you get a lot of criticism from angry parents who could've otherwise gone to work and now have childcare issues. If you open and then conditions get a little hairy, you get outrage from parents who say 'why didn't you consider safety?'"

However, both Raucher and Watkins think that the IWT usually makes the right call. And if anyone out there can predict how many more snow closings to expect this year, it should be Dr. Raucher. So how bad does the rest of this winter look? "Last year we had an awful lot of storms, and according to the Farmers Almanac this [winter's] going to be worse than last year," he considers. "But I don't know how good a predictor the Farmers Almanac is. We'll do it one storm at a time."