Blizzard 2010

It’s unreal that we can have a blizzard here two times in one winter. But it happened. They were predicting up to 3 feet for some places in the DC metro area. We decided to pick the girls up from daycare early so we wouldn’t have risk driving in nasty weather. The schools had all closed for the day, too, in anticipation of it. In our county, it was a teacher day (kids weren’t going anyway), but the teachers ended up “off” as well. It started on Friday, February 5th late in the day and kept going for nearly 24 hours.

These storms always make me nervous. We have trees on 3 sides of our house. They are all really close to the house & quite tall. With the weight of snow (or ice) and blowing winds….and a ground as wet as ours is (from all the other rain and snow this season)…..well, you get it. I worry that a tree will fall on the house. Or, that a tree is going to fall & cause us to lose power for an extended period of time. The only source of heat we have is electricity. And, we have a well, so if we lose power, we lose our water source as well.

When these worries come up, I take a few precautions. The heat goes up, up, up. It gets very warm in here and I wear short sleeves because of it. But, my logic is that if we start off at 76 degrees, it will take a lot longer to get “too cold” for my girls. Leaving the house to go stay elsewhere isn’t an option when the roads are covered with snow. The other thing we do is fill the tub with water (to use for toilets) and fill up pitchers with drinking water. Happily, these precautions turned out to be unnecessary since we didn’t lose power. But, it made me feel better.

There were plenty of people that lost power, though. At the worst, about 8,000 were out of power. My brother-in-law, Buck, works for SMECO. He spent years as a lineman – out in the weather and fixing down lines. Luckily, he’s in management now, so he’s at least not out in the cold. But, he still works extra hours and gets a bit cranky. Dee said she had to tell him at one point “I know this sucks, but it’s not my fault”.

We ended up with 21 inches at our house.
Butch shoveled the driveway a few times on Saturday (while it was still snowing). Even with doing that, he spent 5 ½ hours shoveling on Sunday. We joked about buying a snow blower, but we’ll end up not having a snow like this (fingers crossed) for another 8 years.

I really enjoyed watching the birds....and Kramer did, too.

Our street is a shared driveway and the HOA doesn’t plow it. One of our neighbors has a snow blower & takes care of it. Somehow this is figured into our dues, but I don’t really understand it. I need to ask about it soon. I think we pay “extra” for it….which doesn’t make sense because if “neighbor” bought a snow blower and it’s paid for now…why do we pay extra each year. I’m assuming that that extra amount is passed on to him. I guess for his time? But, the neighbor across the street and we (well, Butch) help with the snow blower, too. I do need to check on that.

During this storm, he was out of town. We found out later his wife was in town….and we wish we knew that…..since Butch could have stayed up with the street throughout Saturday. By Sunday, Butch & I decided we really needed to get someone to plow it. A snow blower isn’t designed to handle 21 inches of heavy snow. We did hear through the grapevine that neighbor’s wife said she was not paying for a plow. Thank you. Next time, let us know you are home & it won’t be needed.

On Monday, neighbor’s relative came to use the snow blower. It was working, but having a hard time keeping up with it. A family friend who has some piece of equipment (forgive me....remembering the names of those things is not high on my priority list) was able to work us in, thankfully. I hate the “stuck” feeling. The other neighbors split the cost with us, so we weren’t totally footing the bill.

Schools and the Federal Government were closed on Monday and Tuesday. Then, we got more snow. For our area, they were calling for more of a wintery mix. That’s how it started on Tuesday night. Thankfully, we only ended up with another 4 inches or so. But, with that extra bit, schools ended up closing the rest of the week and the Federal Government didn’t reopen until Friday.

The schools stayed closed for the entire week. Miss Lisa generally follows the Federal Government, so she was open on Friday. Lacey & Leah were happy to see her and the kids.

The following week, schools were open, but opened late for a few days. I worked from home almost the entire week. Commuting was a nightmare since in DC there is nowhere to put all of that snow. Even on the beltway, you could be driving along with 4 lanes, and all of a sudden, it was down to 2. You can imagine the accidents.

Here it is, March 5....an entire month later......and there is still snow in our yard. Most places are snow-free. But, not all. We are expecting highs in the 50's this weekend and into next week, so I'm hoping it's all gone soon!