Diary Of A Blizzard - Updated With Photos

Tuesday, February 1. 

7:30 am Bearing in mind dire, dire predictions of oncoming storm, called family we carpool with to see if we should keep the kids home. Since the weather really wasn't supposed to hit until school was over, we drove the 10 miles up and dropped them off with fingers crossed.

Spent most of the morning as usual but keeping a sharp eye on conditions. Had to venture out to get antibiotic prescription refilled for dog with bad tooth and surgery scheduled for Friday. Didn't want to take any chances of getting stuck with no meds and a dying dog.

12:00 Husband headed out to split wood for use in fireplace in case we lose power. Husband also braves frigid temperatures to fix broken snowblower. Pretty sure we're going to need it!

1:00 The winds get stronger and stronger, the waves on Lake Michigan get higher and higher, and cancellations begin popping up all through the southeast corner of the state. Cancelled all my students. Fingers still crossed to get daughter back from school. 

2:00 Receive email from daughter's school that they will dismiss at regular time but have already decided to cancel classes for Wed. Thrilled about the cancelled classes. Less thrilled that they didn't close early. The school is situated smack dab on the lake front where the worst conditions are. The drive up to school is so close to the lake that it is almost a white out from blowing snow alone.

4:00 Daughter arrives home safely. We make leek soup and hot chocolate for dinner. Definitely fine fare for hunkering down. John props up flimsy roof of back porch in anticipation of heavy snow.

6:00 The winds are really getting fierce. Spent 30 minutes just looking out my front window in awe of the power of mother nature.

7:00 We still have power so we continue to do the work we can do on the computer and also penciling up comic strips. Deadlines loom, blizzard or no. The room we work in is almost all windows so we can see the gale force of the wind as the trees bend almost sideways.

10:00 Winds are freakishly strong. The view outside my window looks like Hurricane Katrina with snow. The evergreens are bending like palm trees. Start chronicling the blizzard on twitter - view my twitter coverage here.

12:00 plug ipad in to charge for possible lifeline tomorrow and we call it a day.

Wednesday, February 2

3:00 awake to find power is off as suspected would happen. John heads downstairs to move my harps into the warmest room of the house. A note: my primary concern when we have no power in the winter is that we will lose the furnace and my harps will freeze. Unlike us, the harps can't wrap themselves in blankets and radiate their own heat. Harps that freeze crack. Not only are they my livelihood, they are each about $20,000 to replace.

Spend next hour planning for no power for the duration. Finally fall back asleep.

7:00 am son #2 bursts through bedroom door to inform us there is no power. Begins his process of internet withdrawl.

7:05 Son #2 discovers back porch door is blocked by 4 feet of snow. Desperate to access the cell phone he plugged into the car to charge last night, he bundles up (finally puts on a warm coat after two years of me begging him to wear more than a hooded sweatshirt in winter wisconsin weather) and he braves the drifts and blowing snow, heads out the only semi blocked front door, and battles his way back to the unattached garage housing said car and phone.

(A view from the garage to the blocked back door)

7:10 son #2 texts friends furiously, asks to go to a friend's house a mile away- Ha! that was a good one - receives an answer of "No!" most emphatically. He goes back to bed.

7:15 With no TV, no power to my internet computer and barely any coherent news coverage on the radio (I thankfully have a battery powered ipod dock radio I can access) the ipad becomes our only connection to the outside world. I surf the web looking for info on the power outage and a possible estimate of its duration to no avail. The best I can come up with is that our area has been declared a state of emergency and the national guard has been called out, several major highways have been deemed "impassable" and one news story that the power company repair crews keep getting stuck in the snow.

7:20 Thankfully we have a gas stove and can light it with matches to cook a hot breakfast. We also have phone service thanks to a landline with backup power. But there is still no heat and now that it has been off for 4 hours the temperature is dropping rapidly. A plan is hatched to open no doors to the outside until the power is back on. Of course, immediately everyone can think of a reason they have to open a door. The most pressing being the dog that needs to pee. That would be the 65 lb dog with a 2 gallon bladder that needs to pee. John suits up and heads out the front door with a shovel to clear a peeing space.

7:30 Dog having peed successfully, we settle in to do electricity free activities. We tent camp so this is less of a problem for us than it could be.

9:15 Woo Hoo! Power restored. Immediately crank up furnace to equalize temperature and also prepare for possible outage again later. (I'm a pessimist)

9:30 Now that we know we don't have to keep the house closed, daughter heads out into the snow to play with the neighbor kids and John heads out to clear snow and take pictures. He shovels his way from the front door around to the back porch to where the (thankfully repaired) snowblower is.

10:25 John still running the snowblower. Son #2 still asleep. What he doesn't know won't hurt him.... and trust me, he'll put in plenty of shoveling time later!

John standing in one of the shallower spots.

Off to shovel.

More later.

1:30 pm finally finish shoveling and snowblowing. For the reasons we have so much to shovel, click my earlier post here. Son #2 heads out with friends to shovel for other people. Finally has the good sense to dress warmly and take a thermos filled with hot tea. 

2:00 Sit down to go through photos and add them to blog. Those I haven't posted above you can find here.

3:00 Heading down to the kitchen to make molasses cookies with daughter. School has already been cancelled for tomorrow and, now that we know we can get the car out of the garage if needed, we need to kick back a little and enjoy some family time.

A Summation of the event - for what it's worth:

I can honestly say this was one of the most freakish snowstorms I've ever been in. 24 hours after it began, and with no more snow falling for the moment, I can still hear sirens all over the city. 

Kudos to every school and institution that took the warnings seriously and cancelled their activities. A big Rasberry to Carthage College which chose not to do that. Their reason being that it is a residential campus. Last time I checked, not a single faculty member lived on campus. I hope none of my colleagues - especially the ones who drive from Chicago and Milwaukee - got stranded in snow as a result of that decision.

Kudos to the state and city road crews who have worked round the clock to keep the roads as clear as possible. 

Kudos also to the new governor for declaring our area to be in a state of emergency and calling out the national guard to help find stranded motorists. This probably saved countless lives.

A Rasberry to our local radio stations for the lack of coverage moment to moment in the aftermath. When power is out, internet and TV coverage aren't much use. It would have been nice to have a radio station to turn to for up to the minute info on the power outages. I have a whole post about this problem planned for another day.

Kudos to the local paper - they had to cancel delivery for today but have done the best they can to put current news on their website. And special kudos for whoever decided to cancel their paywall during the crisis. The only flaw in this plan is that only folks with an iphone or ipad or power in their houses were able to get on the internet at all.

Comments

[Mike Peterson]

5.30 AM - Make coffee, let puppy out, let puppy in, feed puppy, pour coffee, update website.

8 AM - Consider going to dog park. Decide against it. Move car up to end of driveway so plow guy can do whole driveway.

Um ... that was pretty much my whole day.

[sandra]

Wow...you guys really got hit! We had a snow day here expecting the worst...we got a little snow but nothing that couldn't be dealt or considered out of the ordinary for this time of year. But that big freeze is here...it's feeling bitter out there today.

[anne hambrock]

@Mike, never, ever again will I house break a puppy in the winter. Brrrrr! Did you get any snow?

@Sandra, yeah we got walloped all right! And, as predicted, the deep freeze moved in last night. All that shoveling was a pain but we would not have gotten a second chance.

Stay warm everybody!