I think Dan Gillmor nailed it with this. Not that I blame CNN alone for the school closings and long lines at the grocery store. Fear spreads fast. Last night I spent a silly amount of time refreshing multiple web pages, looking for any kind of clear consensus as to what we’d wake up to, but other than it being bad today, snow totals ranged from the boring to the world shaking. There has to be a financial cost to something like that as parents stay home for their children, who are told to stay home from school. And there isn’t even a decent hill to sled on.