Whether you call the Blizzard of 2013 Nemo or Charlotte like it’s being called in CT this has been one weather event for the record books. Here in CT all storms are compared to the Blizzard of 78. I was born in 78, but in November and the storm was the beginning of February. You do the math there. Needless to say I do not remember it, but it’s safe to say that it’s a huge part of the reason of why I am here.
My husband remembers the Blizzard of 78, but he was 7 years old. So he remembers it from a kid’s point of view. No school and tons of fort building and snowball fights. As it should be, right?
We’re not kids anymore though and for us it meant shoveling. Actually it meant 8 hours of shoveling yesterday and 3 hours on Saturday. It was much colder and very windy on Saturday so hard to do much of anything.
We weren’t without entertainment though while we were out there both days. Saturday a city plow got himself stuck in a snow bank. Someone with a backhoe came to dig him out and he got stuck. He also didn’t seem to know how to operate the backhoe. Not the best combination I would say. He got unstuck and went around the block to try to push the plow. That did not work out too well for him. He got stuck again. After he got unstuck a loader came and began pulling him out. Snapped the chain in his attempt. Seriously, quite the ordeal.
All of this while entertaining made for much more work for us because they dumped the snow in front of our house. Yesterday when we were out there we got to watch cars fish tail around the corner, get stuck, and gawk at us as they drove by. One nosey concerned citizen thought he would stop and make comments about us digging out. As he pulled away he wished us luck with that as he chuckled. Geee thanks. Oh so helpful. I’m still trying to figure out what he got out of that exchange.
So official totals where I live are saying 24 inches. However, I don’t think I could have found a single spot in my yard that measured less than 32 inches. And now we have this 5 1/2 foot snow bank at the end of our driveway. It also extends out 15 feet which means our shoveling is far from over. We had an extra 10 feet beyond our driveway to shovel because they have only done one pass down our street so they are 10 feet away from our side of the road.
To add insult to injury we are getting snow and freezing rain today. My husband attempted to get to work today. He didn’t make it. He got stuck in the street because he wouldn’t swing our van around the snowbank enough to get into the road. He got stuck. Thankfully our neighbor across the street was kind enough to help us push it out. He was already late for work at this point and worried he’d get stuck somewhere else so he called out of work.
The kids are on their 2nd snow day due to the storm. I am honestly thinking that they might end up with a 2 week February vacation at this rate. That will stink because that means they’ll lose their April vacation.
I would say this pretty closely compares to the Blizzard of 78 though. All I heard all my life is how it shut down the state. I’ve never seen the state shut down at this level before. There was a driving ban on all roads on Saturday. Not just the highways, but all CT roads had banned travel. Didn’t stop people from traveling of course, but that’s a pretty major step.
It has been an interesting few days. I’m happy to say that we are all safe and aside from being sore from shoveling we’re healthy. Sadly some families did not fare as well. Over 30,000 people were without power on Saturday. And it was cold then too. There are still over 1000 people without power. Progress is good on that front though. Sadly lives have been lost though. So my heart goes out to those families who have been affected so gravely by this storm. It’s tragic.
Here are some pictures of our adventures over the past few days…
This is my son, standing, not sitting in the snow. He’s not even touching the ground.
My baby girl standing in front of the snow. Almost as tall as her.
The stuck plow on our street.
The backhoe arrives to start digging the plow out. He dumped that snow in our yard!
The snowbank at the end of our driveway. 5 1/2 feet tall and about 15 feet wide. It goes 10 feet into the road.
We’re hoping to see some progress on the roads today.
What would you do with this much snow?
