Sunday, we took Rhiannon back to college. The drive was nice. It was sunny. It was getting colder though. We took her out to dinner before taking her to her dorm. I'm SO glad the storm waited until the next day!
They said the winter storm would hit Monday, and Christopher went to work Monday morning. I had stayed up late Sunday night even though I had taken the night off work, so I slept most of the day Monday. I woke to a phone call from Christopher saying the closing person at work had called in, so he'd have to close the store at 10:15pm. The kids were home on winter break, so they informed me of how it had been sleeting for a while.
As the day wore on, my Facebook feed was filled with photos of cars in ditches all over town. Everything was covered in ice. It did warm up to 33 degrees for a little while so it started raining. Very soon after, it got cold again and everything froze. Literally everything was covered in a layer of ice. It did snow a tiny bit on top of it, but I can't recall now if it was Monday night or Tuesday.
I called Christopher and basically begged him to stay there for the night so he wouldn't wreck driving home. He shrugged it off. I called again later and told him how bad it was in town according to our local FB group. He just got annoyed, so I let it alone. When 10:15 rolled around, no call from him. I waited... 10:45pm still no call. So I called the store, no answer. So I called his phone. yep he was driving home! He was already on the 4-lane (half his commute is on a 4-lane road and the other half is windy back roads), so that eased my mind some. He even said he'd stop at Taco Bell if they were still open! Well, they weren't. I did tell him the town had basically shut down. He finally made it home around midnight. He said the roads were probably better now than they had been during the day when the ice was coming down. The plows had been out as well as salt trucks. Good thing, because he had to get up at 6am and drive back to the store to open again! During the night, I learned that Tennessee had been declared in a State of Emergency!
He was supposed to get off work at 11am the next day, Tuesday,, but didn't get to leave til 3pm because more people called in, but finally he got to come home, and immediately took a nap. Meanwhile, I braved the roads and had to go grocery shopping. It was the first chance we'd really had to get it down. Super busy weekend with the birthday party and transporting Rhiannon back and forth to school. I did almost slip on the grocery store parking lot, since it was a sheet of ice. Also, I had popped the truck to put groceries in, but it was frozen shut. So now when it thaws, the trunk will open at any moment. Joy.
When I was finally back home, I told him our movie date was off, I was not going back out in that after dark! We'll just have to see Kingsmen some other day. Instead, we had dinner and leftover birthday cake and watched The Musketeers and Hawaii 5-0.
Today, the girls woke me up saying there was a blizzard and tons more snow. Yay. Well, I didn't see much more when I got up, and Christopher had gotten to and from work just fine and was home by 4pm. he said it was just the wind blowing around the powdery snow that looked like a blizzard, but on the news, local towns did get a white out. So I dunno.
I do know, another winter storm is on its way, and the high tomorrow is 11 degrees. Now, this may be nothing to people up north, but this is a southern state. we are not used to much below 32 degrees to be honest. most winters are very mild, and the road depts are not prepared for this. Why buy all that salt and plows if we rarely ever use them? So, it's been bad.
Fortunately, we never lost power, but over 50,000 homes were without power after the ice storm, and I can only imagine how bad it will get with more snow piled on that if the next storm brings more.
I am really longing for daffodils and robins and green grass and sunshine...
Stay warm everyone and be careful!
As the day wore on, my Facebook feed was filled with photos of cars in ditches all over town. Everything was covered in ice. It did warm up to 33 degrees for a little while so it started raining. Very soon after, it got cold again and everything froze. Literally everything was covered in a layer of ice. It did snow a tiny bit on top of it, but I can't recall now if it was Monday night or Tuesday.
I called Christopher and basically begged him to stay there for the night so he wouldn't wreck driving home. He shrugged it off. I called again later and told him how bad it was in town according to our local FB group. He just got annoyed, so I let it alone. When 10:15 rolled around, no call from him. I waited... 10:45pm still no call. So I called the store, no answer. So I called his phone. yep he was driving home! He was already on the 4-lane (half his commute is on a 4-lane road and the other half is windy back roads), so that eased my mind some. He even said he'd stop at Taco Bell if they were still open! Well, they weren't. I did tell him the town had basically shut down. He finally made it home around midnight. He said the roads were probably better now than they had been during the day when the ice was coming down. The plows had been out as well as salt trucks. Good thing, because he had to get up at 6am and drive back to the store to open again! During the night, I learned that Tennessee had been declared in a State of Emergency!
He was supposed to get off work at 11am the next day, Tuesday,, but didn't get to leave til 3pm because more people called in, but finally he got to come home, and immediately took a nap. Meanwhile, I braved the roads and had to go grocery shopping. It was the first chance we'd really had to get it down. Super busy weekend with the birthday party and transporting Rhiannon back and forth to school. I did almost slip on the grocery store parking lot, since it was a sheet of ice. Also, I had popped the truck to put groceries in, but it was frozen shut. So now when it thaws, the trunk will open at any moment. Joy.
When I was finally back home, I told him our movie date was off, I was not going back out in that after dark! We'll just have to see Kingsmen some other day. Instead, we had dinner and leftover birthday cake and watched The Musketeers and Hawaii 5-0.
Today, the girls woke me up saying there was a blizzard and tons more snow. Yay. Well, I didn't see much more when I got up, and Christopher had gotten to and from work just fine and was home by 4pm. he said it was just the wind blowing around the powdery snow that looked like a blizzard, but on the news, local towns did get a white out. So I dunno.
I do know, another winter storm is on its way, and the high tomorrow is 11 degrees. Now, this may be nothing to people up north, but this is a southern state. we are not used to much below 32 degrees to be honest. most winters are very mild, and the road depts are not prepared for this. Why buy all that salt and plows if we rarely ever use them? So, it's been bad.
Fortunately, we never lost power, but over 50,000 homes were without power after the ice storm, and I can only imagine how bad it will get with more snow piled on that if the next storm brings more.
I am really longing for daffodils and robins and green grass and sunshine...
Stay warm everyone and be careful!