The Blizzard Aftermath

Here in Connecticut, we are used to the occasional blizzard dumping maybe 1-2' of snow, but even that is a rarity.  The last time that I can remember ever getting that amount of snow at one time was back in 1991 or 92, and even that didn't compare with what we got from Friday into Saturday night.  Even the blizzard of 1978, the benchmark that was being used to gauge this storm, was shot down in comparison to this past weekend.  All told, Connecticut was the hardest hit of the New England states with Hamden taking the prize with 40" of snow, all in one night.  Third on the list was Oxford, our neighboring town, with 36.2" (For those of you who don't think that 36" is a lot, get a measuring tape and hold it up to your leg).  I personally have never seen anything like it.  Sure, the winter two years ago dumped more over the course of the whole winter, but to get this much in one night is insane.  I shoveled twice on Friday afternoon/night, hoping to get a head start on the plethora of snow we were promised, but when I woke up Saturday morning and looked out the window, it was like I hadn't even shoveled at all.  In fact the first words out of my mouth when I looked out the window were "Holy S#@$", and I kept on repeating that at every window of my house that I looked out of.  To be honest, I was pretty lucky in terms of shoveling as I don't live that far from the street and most of my driveway is taken up by cars.  Even more lucky was that my road was one of the few main roads in town that they managed to keep somewhat clear.  Granted, what was a two lane road on any other day had become a one lane road.  At about 10 A.M. Saturday morning they managed to widen it to almost a 1.5 lane road, but it still was far from normal and still has yet to regain its full capacity.  However, as I said, I was lucky.  There were, and still are, many side roads that haven't even been touched yet despite the non-stop efforts of plow trucks and payloaders to clear all the roads.  The biggest problem that towns and municipalities are running into is that if a road wasn't plowed at all, there is no truck with a plow attached that could get through the amount of snow that is packed down.  That is where the payloaders come in, scooping and dumping, over and over and over again until they reach the end of the street. 

In all honesty, I am a true New Englander at heart and thought this was an amazingly wonderful storm, both in its beauty and in the amount of snow we got.  There was a travel ban on all roadways (which a good number of people didn't heed) till about 4 P.M. Saturday afternoon.  Regardless of that ban, I headed out just before the ban was lifted to get down to my parents house and help them shovel out their sidewalk.  The only reason I actually headed out was because I have a 4 wheel drive Jeep Wrangler with manual transmission.  The whole trip down I didn't slide once or even come close to getting stuck.  The most amazing part to me in my travels on Saturday afternoon was how much the highways looked like Armageddon had come and gone.  Normally 4 lane highways (two lanes in either direction) were reduced to one lane either way.  To compound the matter, there were a good number of cars abandoned on the road, some off in a ditch, some in the middle of the road that the plows had gone around.  Even the major thoroughfare in our area, I-95 (the highway that goes the whole length of the eastern seaboard of the U.S.) was reduced to one lane at times with snow piled in the other lanes.  By the time I left my parents, which is a different store altogether, they had managed to get two out of three lanes open, yet the lanes were on the left and right with the center lane being a pile of snow about 6 feet tall.  Incredible.  My parents street, a side street, was not plowed at all on Saturday and as of yesterday was still not plowed.  When I got there, I had to carve myself a little spot at the end of the street for my Jeep in order to walk up to help them out.  It was an experience I will never forget.  It took me 15 minutes just to clear a spot the size of my Jeep at the end of their road as I had to dig through packed snow from the plows about 5 feet tall.  I managed to get their sidewalk done and consequently drove home, mostly exhausted from the day's labor.  All told on Saturday, I helped my neighbor shovel his driveway, about 100' long, and my driveway, and my parents sidewalk.  My neighbor and I approximately figured out how much snow we moved using the following calculations.  We erred on the side of caution and figured each shovel of snow we threw weighed about 10 pounds.  At the rate we were moving, we figured we were throwing about 30 shovel fulls of snow on average per minute (sometimes less, sometimes more).  It took us about 1 hours to do his driveway so we figured shoveling 300 pounds of snow a minute times 60 minutes, we each shoveled about 18,000 pounds of snow or about 9 tons each.  I know, seems to be exaggerated, and it probably is less, but my whole point is that we shoveled an enormous amount of snow. 

My only worry now, and I think it is a very valid concern, is about the rain we will be getting today.  Its supposed to start off as a sleet/freezing rain mix this morning which should turn to all rain by late morning/early afternoon.  My concern isn't about the snow on the ground, but about the snow that has piled up on the all the roofs across the region.  There have already been a number of roof's that have collapsed just from the snow that fell from Friday into Saturday.  Now you factor in the rain that will fully saturate the snow and probably close to triple the weight and we are looking at perhaps more collapsed roofs.  At my own house, I managed to clear off my garage roof which is shakily supported by 2x4's and had about 5 feet of drifted snow on top of it.  I knew that if I didn't, I was probably asking for a disaster.  Then, yesterday evening, I was out on my own roof, clearing more drifted snow.  I got as much as I could off the whole roof  before my muscles started yelling at me, telling me to get down off the roof, take a shower, and get to bed.  I listened to my muscles.  At that point I could barely lift the snow shovel with my muscles aching.  I am grateful that I am a contractor and keep my muscles in fairly good shape through the work I do otherwise I wouldn't have been able to get as much done as I did.  I am also grateful that I know enough now to use my legs instead of my back and the only thing that is actually sore this morning are my muscles.  My back is fine.  My only hope now is that we don't get another snow storm for at least a few weeks so that this current snow pack we have has a chance to melt some.  If we do, I don't have anywhere to put the new snow.  Unfortunately as it looks right now, we might get some more snow next weekend.  But that is a week away and we all know how good meteorologists are at predicted the weather...not that good.  There predictions for this past blizzard was maybe 2' of snow where we are, not the 3' we got.  Oh well, its beautiful out there, despite being a tad bit treacherous, and I still love the snow.  A New Englander at heart I am and I have the feeling I will always be a New Englander no matter what happens.  I guess only time will tell on that front.  My only request is that the local people in Connecticut stop complaining about not being able to drive anywhere.  If you saw what it was like out there and the amount of businesses that are closed, you wouldn't want to go out anyway.  That said, I am off to get ready for work.  Till tomorrow, be well, stay safe, and enjoy the snow if you have it!