Snow-verload, part 2

Back at home, we were prepared but facing new challenges. The lights went out temporarily and we thanked God and Father R that we had a generator. We kept in frequent contact with my parents an hour away. Father R had brought in supplies while in their neck on Monday so we knew they were supplied.
    I tried to maintain some routine in MeiWei's life. We couldn't afford to keep taking snow days along with the school system (who will be going until July it seems). While she worked on a map of--no kidding--Hawaii, she giggled about getting wet. "I knew it couldn't be rain because it's snowing!"
   I looked up and found drops coming from the ceiling.  Father R was concerned, but was busy with the plow.  When all was quiet and I was making lunch, I was alerted to a tapping sound nearby. Now the drips were coming from the middle of the room.   Snow piling up on the balcony over head was blocked and melting into the house!  First one, then two, then three pots were lined up on the floor. Father R came in and immediately headed for a ladder and a shovel. I tried to squelch the idea of going up on a ladder in a blizzard, but he  wouldn't be stopped. Thankfully, he got down the offending blockage  without harm and the leaking stopped.
    The doors on all sides began to be blocked and finding a way for the dog to relieve himself presented a new challenge. Dad R had shoveled a path early on but it had filled up. And opening the slider onto the deck brought in snow-filled gusts.
   The front door, protected in part by the porch roof, provided the only means of "escape" for the dog who still had to wade around ankle deep for a spot and ended up choosing the doormat.
     We expected the snow and wind to let up by nightfall, but it maintained the same pace. The radar showed us to be on the southern edge of a rotating ball of clouds spinning in place over the Mid-Atlantic.  We had played the board games we bought in prep for more cabin fever, had dinner, talked and read weather news until there was nothing left to talk or read about.
   Then Dad got the idea.
    He "double-dog dared" MeiWei to walk all the way out to the "potty patch" that he had just dug in the yard for the dog---in bare feet.   For a piece of chocolate.  And she agreed if he would do it too.  And he did. So Tai and I laughed and grabbed cameras and watched their Polar Bear Stroll.
    Then Tai was dared and she did it. And then MeiWei went out three more times. And I didn't and was accused of being a "wooss" and I agreed to that.
    And it snowed for another hour after everyone went to bed.
    And Baltimore has a new all-time, since 1884, record of total yearly snowfall of 74.5 inches. And it's only mid-February.

Snow-verload, part 1

The rumors became fact. Accuweather.com proved worthy of its name. First eight inches, no ten-twelve inches...no, 18-20...oh, we'll just have to see what we end up with but it'll be really bad, ok?
Act I was as you would expect from a first act, rather fun and exciting, a nice introduction to the play.
Act II is when the plot turns sour. And so did this storm.

Winter Storm Warnings on Tuesday turned to Blizzard Warnings on Wednesday until 7 pm. Those were later extended to 10 pm. Snowfall estimates were ever-climbing and drift estimates were added as winds drove the snow sideways for hours.

The night before I stumbled over to the We-Is market to get more food to last another week (the amount of time we expected to be house-bound) plus, more importantly, some wine. (Had enough of the must-have bread and toilet paper.) I walked the aisles in a stress-induced daze. An enterprising person had shoved a "Snowplower for Hire" sign under the counter's glasstop.

DH got home early and again went into lock-down mode with wood, wood pellets, shovels, salt, and snowblower. It was becoming a routine that was not welcome.

The snow began, grudgingly it seemed, around mid-afternoon. By nightfall a few inches had collected. (Any other year, that would have been noteworthy alone, possibly cancelling school.)

Father Robin suggested that it was going to miss us; this was all we'd get.
But by bedtime, it picked up and snowed in earnest all the rest of the night. By morning there was around 6-8 inches. Then the storm truly began.
Snow came heavily all morning. At noon the wind also picked up, driving the snow sideways for most of the afternoon. White-outs were frequent.
At home, the girls and the dog went out to take video. Father R fired up Ol' Bess the Blower and headed out for another crawl up and down the driveway, harvesting the same "crop" he had spent hours on two days earlier. He found where the dog had relieved himself and blew it to smithereens over a bank.

Unlike the miraculous road conditions the county maintained in Act I, this time, the only thing going by were plows. And not often. By late in the day, even they had been called off the roads because of hazardous conditions.

You know it's getting bad when the plows get stuck.

Snow My Gosh

It began Friday, the 5th. Nobody could really imagine how it would end.


It was predicted to be a "ten-loafer". In this area, where an inch of snow can send the cities into paroxysms of panic, people's anxiety can be measured by how many loaves of bread they will stock up on. (Packages of toilet paper can be substituted.) Three loaves means school will be closed for a day. At five-loaves,a foot of snow and so on. People in the Mid-Atlantic must eat a lot of french toast before shoveling.
This storm prediction emptied shelves. Bread, toilet paper, coffee, booze, you name it. Whatever your priority.
At our house, I had placed a sizable order from Peapod home delivery. My DH had stocked wood in the garage and filled the snowblower's gas tank. We were ready for it. And it came. And we saw. And it conquered. Twenty-two inches piled up in our yard.

The birds went through five pounds of seed in 24 hours. The dog couldn't see over the swath cut by the snowblower. The cat was thrown outside in the morning by well-meaning MeiWei and crept under the deck where he remained throughout the storm. We worried he would be buried alive. (He surfaced at dusk.)

Tai escorted MeiWei to her friend's house to sleepover. The snow was knee deep and took them twenty minutes to walk to the next house a couple acres away.
While playing there, Mei got her boot stuck in a snowbank, pulled out her foot and ran inside in her sock. Upon returning, no one could find the boot. The plow had been through since, completing the burial. We were some of the two dozen exhausted customers at Wally World the next day--one of the few places even open--where we searched frantically for replacements.

Then we began hearing rumors of another storm coming.