The snow emergency was announced on Thursday a full day before the snow arrived. The emergency then went into effect Friday morning and the snow did not start until around lunch time, several hours later. There was not a single flake of snow in the first couple hours when most of the tickets were issues. People who are saying they got tickets for being &#x27;snowed in&#x27; are blatantly misrepresenting what happened. They were parked illegally before the snow even fell, and had plenty of warning.<p>Additionally, as others have said, parking was FREE at metro station garages around the area through Tuesday. And many area garages were also offering free or $1 parking. There is absolutely no excuse for being parked on the snow emergency routes.