One of the reasons that I’m glad that I queued posts about the winter weather storm as far out as I did rather than write about them in the immediate or the near-immediate aftermath is that I am glad that something that frightening will probably never happen again for the rest of my life if I continue to live in this area… that is, unless we’ve really angered Mother Nature and can reasonably expect cooler temperatures around here come winter months. It was actually frightening to have to go through that, feeling the ice crack underneath your feet although it looked as though you were stepping on snow, literally having to trudge across somewhat slippery ice to get to the mailbox (and the mail and newspaper quickly stopped running during this, things got that bad) or to bring the trash bins from the side of the house to the curb. I nearly fell six times while all of this was going on, and I know how to walk like a penguin. I tried hard to walk like one.
And then there was the panic buying of food and other necessities even while temperatures warmed back up… and it was surreal how we went from freezing temperatures, dripping faucets if we were wise to keep pipes from freezing, to somewhat cool or even balmy. Having to make multiple trips to the state grocer to get food for my family because it was literally like playing the lottery what would be on the shelves at any given day. Lining up outside of the grocer on the first and second day just to get in the grocer. Seeing port-a-potties outside of the grocer because the grocer’s water lines had busted due to ice expansion and they had no access to fresh water. Finding out that this had happened to multiple buildings in the whole state.
Finding out that the local school district had cancelled classes for an additional week due to this.
The mail and newspaper did get back to normal once the ice and snow had for the most part melted, but the panic buying did persist for a bit after the fact… and it was the strangest foods that the grocer was either low on or out of. Chips. TV dinners. Strangely, almost everything that was canned was still on the shelves.