Snow Shuts Down Government, but Life Goes on!

WASHINGTON — If snow keeps 230,000 government employees home for the better part of a week, will anyone notice? With at least another foot of snow headed for Washington, Philadelphia and New York, we're about to find out. The federal government in the nation's capital has largely been shut down since Friday afternoon, when a storm began dumping up to 3 feet of snow in some parts of the region. Offices were remaining closed at least through Wednesday.

So far, the effects have been negligible. Many essential government services are performed at offices around the country, and about 85 percent of federal employees work outside the Washington region anyway. Others were working from home despite the snow. An IRS spokeswoman said tax returns should not be affected.

"Anything that is critical is going to get done," said Linda Springer, a former director of the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the federal work force of nearly 2 million workers.

David Fiore, who works for the federal government's Export-Import Bank of the U.S., stocked up on groceries Tuesday in Washington and said he planned to do some work from home, including a 2 p.m. conference call.

"They're open in Turkey. I'm getting e-mails from Morocco," he said. "The work goes on."

That was the case for Robert Kronin, who made it to his office at a non-profit organization in Washington that has contracts with the government. He said that with federal workers off, he had fewer meetings and got caught up with a lot of paperwork.

Still, "it's always hard to swallow when the government has the day off and we don't," he said as he walked home.