Chicago Snowpocalypse 2011: Lake Shore Drive

Did I mention that we got a bit of snow the last couple of days?  20.2 inches to be exact.  I'll be posting lots of photos here and on my flickr account over the next couple of days, but I wanted to start with this batch that I took on Lake Shore Drive on February 2nd, the day after the storm.  Actually, this was literally about two hours after the storm had ended.  Lakeshore Drive was closed to traffic on Tuesday night, and remained closed all day on Wednesday, due to multiple accidents during the blizzard.  Hundreds of motorists were forced to abandon their cars on the drive.  These photos were taken between Bryn Mawr and Foster, a bit north of the main incident, but still there were signs of what had happened the night before. 


I'm looking south in this shot, from near Bryn Mawr Ave, where I entered the drive.  The police had blocked off the entrance to automobiles, but no one seemed to care (or have time to worry about) pedestrians.


This is the view north.  I had jumped over to the north bound lanes for this one.


This poor car had Arizona plates.  I bet the driver wishes he or she was there right now.


Another abandoned car.  Looking south, you can see the pink facade of the Hollywood Beach Apartments in the upper left corner.


That's an abandoned car and an abandoned tow truck.  My favorite shot of the whole set.  This really shows what a mess things were.


Tread marks from a passing tow truck.


A fleet of snowplows drives past, nearly plowing me over in the process.


This is the exit ramp at Foster Ave.  A little blue sky peeked out for this shot which was a welcome sight.

Photo Details: All photos in this set were taken with a Nikon D7000 and 16-85mm lens, with shutter speeds between 1/800sec and 1/2000sec at f8, and ISO200 to ISO400.  I tried to keep the processing fairly simple on these-- the scene itself was more than interesting enough and didn't need any extra flair.