I believe my parting words to the month of January were as follows: "Hopefully February brings us better weather, and no more snow days!"
Well if I didn't just set myself up for disappointment, you can call me Uncle Sam! How does that old saying go? "Red sky in morning, Sailors take warning!" This was out my kitchen window Monday morning.
I'm not Uncle Sam, and I'm certainly not a sailor, but February DID decide to bring with it some more snow. Another monster storm (at least according to these parts) moved in Tuesday morning and dumped about 3 inches over the course of the day. It was lovely, beautiful, fluffy stuff, and the kids had an early release from school and Jon got off work-- so no biggie. Hooray!
Wednesday morning they'd canceled work and school, and actually, the snow hadn't even stuck to the pavement, so the roads were clear and we headed to the gym like usual. Myself and Jon (and the two other people there) were unfazed by the modest amount of snow, but the news alerts on TV were going crazy warning everyone to buckle down because the worst was yet to come. They were predicting more snow, followed by freezing rain, followed by more snow-- which would result in mass power outages. The rain makes the snow so wet and heavy that it breaks the branches off the trees and falls onto the power lines, creating havoc.
We decided to head straight to WalMart to pick up some milk and other necessities just in case it got as bad as everyone seemed to think it would. This is about an hour into the storm, driving home from the store. For seasoned veterans like ourselves, who have driven the Snowville-to-Burley-run a million times in the dark of winter, it was nothing. We got stuck behind a big truck going about 10 mph though, and what should have been a 20 minute drive home ended up taking about 45 minutes. Honestly!
We spent the day enjoying the snow, making treats, and watching movies, and then that night the freezing rain hit. Holy cow! I've never been in an ice storm, but it sounded like hail hitting the windows and roof all. night. long! We kept hearing big cracks outside as the ice fell off the power lines and branches broke with too much weight. I was SO afraid our power would go out and we would have to wake the kids up and put them in bed with us so they didn't freeze to death in our drafty house! Thankfully it didn't and we were able to enjoy a yummy pre-Valentine's Day breakfast of red velvet pancakes and hot cocoa in our warm and cozy kitchen!
We decided we'd all head out to observe the arctic wasteland that had become North Carolina overnight, so we bundled everyone up starting with the baby.
Yup. Even Leah got the grocery bag treatment despite pulling out Lucy's old snow pants from storage. She was not thrilled with the bundling job, as she could barely walk.
I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but there was about 7 inches of snow--more where there were drifts, which is a LOT of snow for around these parts. The snow was rock hard with about an inch crust of solid ice. Not that much fun to play in!
You had to stomp through the ice crust in order to walk on it, so building a snowman was out of the question. Our neighbor friends brought out their sleds so we could try sledding down our hill, but we didn't have much luck with that either.
All the pine needles on the trees were encapsulated in a layer of ice. The branches became so heavy there were downed trees everywhere! We knew it would take poor North Carolina a loooong time to dig out of this one, so we bid our time patiently at home. Luckily Lucy and Zach played with their neighbor friends almost the entire day-- bouncing from one house to the next when they got bored. That was a life saver for our cabin fever!
But by Thursday evening I had absolutely had it!! I was beyond ready to get out of the house after 3 days stuck inside, so we figured the main roads were probably plowed and decided to head out to assess the damage. There were a few other brave souls out on the road, and one or two fast food joints open, but otherwise the entire city was SHUT DOWN. I've never seen anything like it! That just doesn't happen in the west, unless of course it's the end of the world.
So, Lesson #1: The South really does shut down for snow. Apparently the freeways in Raleigh became a parking lot for abandoned cars-- people just got out and walked rather than drive in snowy conditions. They said on the news that Durham reported over 141 accidents in a 3 hour period. Seriously?!? Seriously. Lesson #2: You know there's no hope when even the police officers don't know to scrape their own windows and drive by with snow piled up 6 inches on their back windshield. Obviously there was no school the rest of the week, and Lucy will have to go to Saturday school for the next month, but these are just all things to remember from our time here in North Carolina!
