Wednesday, January 29, 2014

The South - Snowed in

My first winter in Georgia was educational. I learned that even a prediction of precipitation means I should make a rush trip to the store to stock up on bread and beer, that I need to put the buckets out to collect water in case the electricity goes out (I was out in the middle of nowhere and not connected to a sewer line, so if I wanted to flush toilets…), and then during the actual event I should hunker down and never! leave the house. (I actually had grabbed my camera and gone sightseeing, that icy world was unlike anything I had ever seen before but for months afterward my neighbors thought I was either foolish or reckless for going outdoors in the ice and cold.) Ice storms are actually more common than snow in this area of the South, and during my three years in the Piedmont I only saw the white stuff stick a couple of times.

 
My first winter in Greenville brought a mega-ice storm, one serious enough that even my camera and I stayed indoors. The evening news report centered around the steep road leading to an office building’s parking lot; the first car had misjudged the slippery curve and ended up in the ditch, and the next twenty cars or so all thought they would fare better resulting in a two dozen car pile-up on a quarter-mile stretch of road. The winters since then have been rather mild; the occasional snow/ice that is hard to get excited about, and since the boys have lived in Greenville there has been nothing to build a snowball with. Until yesterday!

 
Although less than an inch of snow fell over the course of late afternoon/evening yesterday, schools were closed at noon and many employees sent home early. School has been cancelled for the day, and (both) salt/sand trucks are out in full force. Being from Chicago it is hard not to laugh at these precautions/reactions to the snow, but the worry could be warranted; a large majority of drivers are not equipped/experienced enough to handle the slippery conditions, and only a few blocks from our house we saw the first casualty – a large SUV that had taken a turn too fast and slid into the curb/sewer.

 
So what did we do? We spent an hour in the backyard catching snowflakes and watching the white stuff accumulate before heading indoors to warm up and wait for dad to get home. Then, it was off to Falls Park for some sledding. My boys have seen a good foot of snow while up north during the holidays, but none this year as we spent Christmas in SC and so they were perfectly happy with the paltry inch that didn’t even completely cover the grass in most places. Thanks to our wonderful neighbors we were sledding in style on a real sled, instead of the tupperware lids and cardboard boxes we had planned to improvise with. Of course Roberts brought the Frisbees too, which ended up being a major hit with all the high school kids that joined us on the hill.

 
To all those in the deep freeze up north, I wish you plenty of hot chocolate, curling up in blankets to read good books, and warm clothes to bundle up in for those venturing outside. But to all my friends down South, I wish you the ability to see the snow through the eyes of a child, the motivation to slide down a hill on a trash can lid and the time to wander about and see this new world through a white lens. (Just remember to drive carefully!)

14 comments:

  1. It certainly makes for beautiful pictures though! We have such extremes - you with ice storms, and us melting in a heatwave down in the Southern Hemisphere. Enjoy the snow days (but curious why you had to stock up on Beer - was that just because you enjoy beer, or for some special snow related reason??!)

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    1. Beer and bread (and milk) are the items listed as stores having "empty shelves" during the pre-storm stock-up panic... Kind of like plywood and water before a hurricane. Although really an exaggeration, I was a bit younger when I lived in Georgia, and so the beer might have been important ;)

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  2. I love the first and last pictures! I am kind of missing snow this year-- the first winter we haven't had any since we moved from Los Angeles 7 years ago!

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    1. One of the things I miss most about Chicago... snow. And not an inch or two every other year...

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  3. Bread and beer, definitely better than bread and milk. We might have had the same first winter in Greenville. My first winter there an ice storm knocked out my power for over a week.

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    1. Trying hard to remember when that would have been... Early 2000s I think.

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  4. Looks like fun was had by all! Cool to see photos of Falls Park in this weather as opposed to when I saw it in the warm sunny fall weather.

    This winter in DC is by far the worst (well, definitely the coldest) I've experienced in my 15 years here, but nothing compared to what our relatives in the Midwest are having to survive! The below zero temps, whipping winds and seemingly never-ending snow cause cabin fever rather quickly.

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    1. Isn't it crazy?! Schools in Chicago were cancelled the second day in a row yesterday, and for good reason - it was the coldest day on record with -20 F temps - before windchill! Meanwhile, we've got the 1/2 inch (almost melted now) and most libraries/museums and public offices are closed. Atlanta had a pretty bad time with this storm though, I think we might have gotten the best of it.

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    2. My colleges in WI never cancelled classes, although we had -20 and lower temps freshmen year. And sophomore year - gobs of snow. But apparently when classes had been cancelled in past, a couple of students had asked to be reimbursed for the cost of the cancelled lectures! When you're attending a private school and do the math how much each lecture costs, make sense....but that meant we had to trudge to class no matter what!
      In this litigious and safety-concerned era, however, I'm wondering if policies
      have changed!

      Sis in MI wrote in an email the other day, "When spring comes, it is going to be the most wonderful thing ever."

      It makes sense that cities which rarely get snow aren't going to necessarily be prepared for it. However, any major city which already has bad traffic can expect things to be bad whenever a storm comes. Hopefully ATL learned its lesson.

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  5. I am so thankful I no longer live in Atlanta. I couldn't imagine what I would've done if I had been stuck on the side of the road somewhere or my kids had not been able to come home from school or my husband was stuck at work. I know friends who abandoned their vehicles and walked a few miles home. Friends who were stuck at work and had to spend the night there. It sounded horrific and then more. Your warm up will be on the way soon.

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    1. As hopefully will be yours - it isn't exactly spring up in your neck of the woods, is it? My understanding is that the mess in Atlanta was doubled by all the abandoned vehicles, as the road cleaning crews couldn't get through anywhere with all the cars without drivers left everywhere - what a total mess! Thankfully Greenville was a bit more prepared, and most everybody was home before the storm hit.

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  6. Great last paragraph! I'm in the frozen north, and, with the polar vortex, this winter is much colder than average for Philly. Our school district hadn't had a snow day in a couple of years, while we've had four so far this season. I'm ready for warmer temps!

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    1. Thanks! I feel for the kids - school will stretch way into summer for my cousins up in Chicago, trying to make up the lost days. What's worse, sitting in school on a nice hot summer day, or stuck at home in polar temps?

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  7. As long as I have everything that I need, I'm perfectly happy to be snowed in :)

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