Bad weather demands that we exercise caution and take some responsibility for ourselves. If your car stalls on a back road at night you can die if you didn't bother to bring a coat along, and you have to be aware of where the ice is unless you enjoy twisted ankles. In California a homeless man can nest under a bush at night. Not here; not in February. Dress right and be prepared, or suffer the consequences.
But it is silly to think ourselves champions of rugged self-sufficiency, and not just because there are others farther north who laugh at us.
Much of our defense against winter is communal. We may laugh at an Arkansas town shut down by a mere 6 inches of snow—but our cities aren't shut down because we run snow plows; and if 6 inches falls they even get around to plowing our street. The city doesn't stop because we make sure it doesn't. Communal action.
If we get a half inch of ice: no big deal. There's no school, non-essential businesses stay closed and if your trees start breaking you find out who in the neighborhood has chainsaws. He lives right next door. No big deal. If the power goes out you just put your groceries in the garage to stay cool—the lack of cable TV might be painful, though.
The stores sell us warm coats and snow shovels and snow blowers and sidewalk salt—we don't sew our own coats by candlelight or make our own snowshoes. We're part of a web of commerce that supplies us.
The sidewalks are kept back from the streets so that street plowing doesn't block them, and the city fines you if you don't clear your sidewalk in reasonable time. Houses have to be built with adequate insulation and heating. Our rules are designed to make it easier to deal with winter. Communal rules.
Even dealing with accidents is communal—people are quicker to stop for someone stuck in a snowbank than for someone out of gas in the summer.
We live “proof against winter” not because we're so much tougher, but because we hang together.
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