First Snow Part 3

Hoooooleeeee Cow, Batman.

Power finally came back on yesterday afternoon. It went off Friday at about 5, came back on a half hour later, then went off at 6 for good. The snow continued until early Saturday morning. When it was all done, we had 14-16″ overall, with deeper places in protected areas. It was beautiful and frightening. We sat up late that night, listening to branches break, the sounds like rifle shots. Some were really close but most were far enough away we felt safe.

The idiotic woman in charge of the post offices around here wanted people to go to the post offices. Leicester P.O. had no power. The mail from the day before had not been picked up so nothing had been left for them to even sort by flashlight. One clerk was asked to stick around in case the trucks ever arrived with mail. She even had tiny little generators delivered to some post offices. (Later we found out that no one was at the mail distributing building. No one could get there. Trucks that had managed to make it there sat lined up with no one to drive them and no one to empty them. No power to run the machines. So why did that idiot demand people risk their lives to go sit in the dark when she KNEW no mail was going to be delivered that day?!?)

Lorna had parked her car on the road. Even turned it around so it faced in the direction she’d have the best chance of getting out. Ha. When she’d parked it, the snow was already higher than the bottom of the door. When we got up that morning to let the dogs out, we knew there was no way she was even going to try. No job is worth it. Something we had learned a long time ago. Jobs can be found, lives lost cannot be recovered.

Sometime on Sunday, a big truck following a scraper showed up to clear our little road. We felt perhaps there was a light at the end of this snow covered tunnel. Later that day we could see that the types of vehicles going by were not just big huge trucks with chains but also some smaller cars. So we put on clean clothes and left to find some hot food. We’d have loved to go to Waffle House in Weaverville but figured the roads in that direction were worse. We had heard that Leicester Hwy was clear-ish so we went to Asheville that way. Wow. What a trip it was. The road that goes by our house wasn’t too bad except where it was down to one lane due to trees and huge drifts. One stretch of road had at least a dozen trees down, all in a nice row.

We went to Denny’s, had far too much to eat. We went to the fish store nearby (they were open!) and bought a battery powered air pump. We also went to the car part place to get Lorna new windshield wipers. Then on to the grocery store which was the biggest mess I have ever seen. Nothing had been plowed and the entire place was one big half-frozen slushie machine.

Lorna went to work Monday (and managed to deliver to about 500 of her 700+ boxes).

Meanwhile, I was without my CPAP machine. I wasn’t getting enough sleep. I became a very grouchy, and on Monday night, a quite violent bundle of nerves. No one was hurt but I’d reached my tipping point. If the power was not going to come back on Tuesday, we were taking me to a hotel where I could sleep.

But the power did come back on. I went to bed around 7pm, woke up briefly at 2am, woke up at Lorna’s insistence to pee and drink at around 5. Woke up again at 10 with Mikey chewing on my foot. The dizziness is gone and I am not nearly as grumpy. I will be going to bed early tonight, too, but not as early as I did last night!

Saturday morning. The truck was covered by the bamboo and the snow. Monday I managed to get it free of the bamboo but couldn’t make it to the road. Tuesday I made it almost to the road until it started sliding sideways. Now it is sitting in mud, snow, and ice. I’m going to try again soon. Thing is, it’s tires are baby butt smooth and the gas tank is sucking fumes.

This is part of the reason the power was out for so long. Not only did the snow weigh down trees, it also piled up on the lines themselves. Out back, where the cable is closer to the house, it got to be at least 6″ around.

The finches at the thistle feeder. We were swamped by birds during the storm and for most of the days since. Lorna refilled all the feeders Friday night and each day would go out and sprinkle some on the ground for the ground-feeding birds.

Our ladder. Check out the snow!

Comments

  1. Elena wrote the following but somehow I deleted her post but I still had it in email form (blog notifies me of comments):

    Get out your leaf blower and blow that snow off your power lines before tomorrow night’s storm! Oh, wait. You don’t live in the city. You don’t have a leaf blower, do you?

    And get an inverter to hook up your CPAP to your batteries.

  2. Another storm?! No way!

    I do have an inverter. But the battery was dead. I need new batteries for Monster Blue so what I will do is trade in the older batteries I have and keep these newer-ish ones.

    Another storm?!

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