today’s news and information gleanings from here and there!

Quote for today… “For the first year we’re in five venues, we have nine stages and they’re all within in walking distance of each other. And it’s all indoors of course because it is February.” – Rich Ruoff, talking about The Lancaster Roots & Blues Festival in this WITF article.

• Not getting easy for Micah – LancasterOnLine

• 511PA added to the “WEATHER, TRAFFIC, ETC.” tab above.

• AND NOW IT’S 12 INCHES: Heavy snow

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• More boondoggling at the state level – WHTM Channel 27

• City of Lancaster has another way to communicate with its citizens: “More snow in the forecast – again. Now’s a good time to sign up for e-alerts. http://t.co/sq9D2Sxz7N – City Website

• Ephrata, too. And Lititz.

• Elizabethtown, Mount Joy, Strasburg and Terre Hill use Swift911. “During an emergency, municipalities and law enforcement agencies must have an efficient and reliable means with which to communicate with its residents, staff and businesses. Emergency notification systems provide local, county and state government with an extremely valuable tool used to keep communities informed during a crisis. SwiftReach’s emergency notification solutions enable governmental organizations to quickly alert its constituents via voice, text, fax, email and CAP/IPAWS. All SwiftReach solutions are backed by the Notification Delivery Network, the network responsible for delivering the highest success rates in emergency notification.”

• Lancaster and Wrightsville have declared snow emergencies in advance of the snow storm. “Wrightsville Borough has declared a snow emergency, effective 6 PM, Wednesday 2/12/2014 through Friday 2/14/2014. ” – Wrightsville Borough Website

• “Let there be light” in Columbia or you can go to the West Hempfield Police Department’s facebook page. Or Manor Township’s because you will not find out much at Columbia Police Department’s two pages.

• Not sure when it happened (sometime between 8:00 and noon or so, most likely), but Columbia Borough’s Website now proclaims  a “State of Emergency” beginning at 5:00 pm.

• Oh yeah, you may have noticed – Strasburg has released a citizen-friendly, visitor-friendly Website. Lots of communities welcome visitors to their towns using the Websites. Lots of towns really like their citizens and visitors.

• Cruisin’ Columbia turns into Columbia’s Thunder on the River Car Show on June 21. And that’s followed by RiverFest: Music and Art along the Susquehanna across the river in Wrightsville from 5 to 9 pm.