Chronology of a crisis, Vancouver Island-style

5:35 pm. Environment Canada predicts two to five centimetres of snow will fall on Victoria within a 24-hour period. Ed Bain reads the forecast on-air , turns white and faints.
5:40 pm. Victoria Mayor Alan Lowe issues immediate appeal for federal assistance. Prime Minister Paul Martin promises to send in the army.
8:45 pm. Victorians begin queuing at tire stores, leaving vehicles in line overnight to be first served in morning.
10:15 pm. It turns out B.C.'s last army base, CFB Chilliwack,closed in 1998. Martin promises to send in the navy instead.
10:20 pm. Navy announces deployment to San Diego and Hawaii for "security reasons." Leader Stephen Harper suggests prime minister call Quebec advertising agencies to shovel snow, "since that's where the Liberals are spending all our money anyway."
6:22 am. Temperature plunges. Word spreads that Saanich man found ice on windshield. Curious neighbours gather to watch him scrape it off with credit card. One motorist, a former Albertan, claims use of mysterious "defrost" switch on dashboard can aid in process.
8:15 am. Terrified downtown skateboarders lose toques to menacing mob of balding, middle-aged men. "We tried to run," they say, "but those stupid baggy-assed pants made us fall down."
9:30 am. Hardware stores sell both of the snow shovels. Islanders begin cobbling together implements made from kayak paddles, umbrellas, plywood, cookie sheets and boogie boards.
10:00 am. Golfers switch to orange balls. Beacon Hill Park cricket players, anxious not to repeat the ugly "snow-blower incident" of the Blizzard of '96, switch to orange uniforms.
Noon. Word of impending West Coast snowfall tops newscasts across Canada. Saskatoon hospitals report epidemic of sprained wrists related to viewers high-fiving one another.
1:20 pm. Elementary schools call in grief counselors. Grief counselors refuse to go, citing lack of snow tires.
2:30 pm. Rush hour begins an hour early as office workers come down with mysterious illness and bolt for home. Usual traffic snarl is compounded by large number of four-wheel-drives abandoned by side of road.
2:50 pm. Airplanes grounded and ferries docked. No way to travel between Island and rest of the world. Times Colonist headline: Mainland Cut Off From Civilization.
3:22 pm. Prime Minister Martin announces Canada's DART rapid response team can be on the ground within six months. "We can't leave Victoria to deal with 225 centimetres of snow on its own," he tells Lowe."Um, that's two-to-five centimetres, not two-two-five," replies the mayor. The prime minister hangs up.
3:33 pm. Provincial government responds to crisis by installing slot machines in homeless shelters.
3:45 pm. Builders of new arena announce weather-related delays will push completion date back to July 2008.
4:10 pm. At behest of Provincial Emergency Program, authorities begin adding Prozac to drinking water.
4:15 pm. Fears of food shortage lead to alarming scenes of violence and looting. Grocery shoppers riot across the city, except in Oak Bay, where residents hire caterers to do the rioting for them.
4:30 pm. Bracing for the arrival of snow, the city is gripped by an eerie stillness reminiscent of Baghdad on the eve of the invasion. Searchlights comb darkening sky for first sign of precipitation.
4:48 pm. Panic ripples across region as word comes in that first flakes have fallen on Malahat. False alarm. "Flakes" turn out to be nothing more than anthrax spores released by terrorists. An uneasy calm returns to city.
5:40 pm. Ed Bain, shaking uncontrollably, tells viewers that snow warning has been extended. This weather pattern could go on for days. Mercury plummets to Calgary-in-August levels. Martial law is declared. Victoria-area politicians announce plans to establish emergency command centre aboard HMCS Regina once it reaches Oahu.

*Thanks to Rob for the forward