Blizzard '09 - thrills, excitement, terror, inactivity!

I have a distinct and mildly horrifying memory from my youth imprinted on my brain that I remembered yesterday.  Don’t worry, that first line is almost entirely hyperbole, but it did leave an indelible enough mark that I can picture the entire thing even though it must have been close to two decades ago that I first saw it.  And yesterday, when blizzard ’09, the storm of the century, hit, that memory thankfully left me inside with a cup of coffee in my hand rather than outside with a shovel.  And just to be more melodramatic about it, I won’t tell what this is all about until at least halfway through the post.

People are often skeptical of meteorologists, and on Tuesday night, it didn’t look like the storm was going to be too bad.  There was snow, but not too much yet.  Well, Wednesday came, and it was all that the newscasters had claimed.  Accumulated and blowing snow had formed multiple-foot high drifts across our street.  The parking lot was impassable, blanketed by a waist-high sea of white.  The howling winds had blown a mound up to the door of our building, leaving only a narrow passage out to the garage areas.  And they weren’t done yet, throwing so much snow about that we could scarcely see across the street at times.  That, coupled with WHO’s announcement that my work was cancelled, convinced Stacia that she shouldn’t chance it, and we took a snow day.

The day was, actually pretty great.  We had plenty of food in the house, so there was no need to venture out.  We brewed a pot of shade-grown coffee, toasted up some English muffins, and wrapped ourselves under a blanket to watch mindless TV for a little while.  After a little bit of this, we started to move about – Stacia knitting as I watched an old movie, when Stacia spotted a truck stuck on our street.  We immediately went to the windows to watch.

At first we didn’t see anybody about the truck, so we ignored it, assuming it had been abandoned.  Maybe an hour later, though, two people were outside it with a snowblower, gas can and a pint of oil, apparently intending to dig themselves out.  Unfortunately, it seemed neither had used a snowblower before, because they were out there reading the instruction manual as they went, and really struggling to make any progress clearing the snow.  I felt bad for them, but I’ve never used a snowblower before, either, so I wasn’t sure there was much I could do to help.  With a little bit of sympathy, we retired from the window and made some lunch.

A few hours passed.  We checked in from the window on and off with the truck people, increasingly pityingly, but again without much we could do to assist.  Then Stacia shouted from across the condo “There’s someone coming!”  I rushed to the window in time to see a GMC Yukon barreling down the road, while the truck people fruitlessly waved their arms to warn of the huge drifts.  What followed was like something from a movie: the Yukon raced down the street, right into a four-foot snowdrift!  A giant cloud of powder blasted out and the Yukon stopped immediately.  We now had two vehicles stuck in the snow in front of our building.

As we stood there in awe, we began to wonder more if there was anything we could do to help.  We discussed it, and finally decided we couldn’t, for three reasons.  1) Everyone had been told all day not to be out traveling.  The only places these people could reasonably be headed to on our street are the mall or nearby stores, so I doubt it was any sort of emergency besides a shopping one.  2) There was no way these people were going to get out.  Maybe if it had been a little bit of snow like a normal snowstorm, they might have stood a chance.  But come on, the plows weren’t even out at this point, there were tow bans, and the cars were stuck in drifts higher than my waist.  Even if we’d tried to help, we wouldn’t get anywhere.  And 3).

3) is a movie we were forced to watch in elementary school.  Ostensibly it was a winter safety video, but it was really creepy.  The one part I remember in detail showed a kid getting out from the bus and climbing atop a drift to wave to his friends inside the bus before it pulled away.  Then the child slipped down the embankment beneath the bus, which then pulled away, not seeing him there.  It wasn’t too graphic, but geez, what a thing to show a 7-year old!  In a sense it worked, since I’ve always been careful on slick surfaces and around large vehicles, but maybe there was a less traumatic way to show it!

So when I looked out the window and saw these drivers throwing their cars rapidly from drive to reverse and back, spinning their wheels at high speeds, I wanted nothing to do with being in front or behind them pushing, in the off chance they did gain any traction.  With a little bit of a feeling that we were somehow bad people, we became gawkers instead, watching their (lack of ) progress from the safety and comfort of our condo.  The two vehicles exhibited varying degrees of dedication, but in the end, neither could get out (told you so) and they gave up to head to the mall or a hotel.

I still feel like a bit of a jerk for not helping, but all seems to have worked out.  As of this morning, the cars are out, so once the plows began to run and the winds died down, they were able to recover their vehicles.  And as we were leaving home today, a neighbor was stuck in our lovely, still unplowed lot, but in a spot with only in a few inches of snow.  We were able to push him out, since we weren’t attempting the impossible, and there was almost no chance of getting run over.  Maybe that makes up for the others, karma-wise.

So at the end of blizzard ’09, we had done as we were told: staying inside, not traveling, and you know what?  It was a great snow day.  Relaxing, warm, comfortable, and Stacia, Roxie and I got to spend a peaceful and lazy day together.  Beats being in the office anyday.