Winter Storm

"I guess one out of three winter storm warnings in North Carolina need to be taken seriously." -Noah

Over the last few weeks we've had a couple "winter storm" warnings calling for snow and ice and winter disaster--the first two, we hardly even saw any snow from, but the last one hit us hard. If you have followed the weather in the East at all the last week, you will know about the main part of the storm that we caught a small corner of. It started to snow Friday morning (what fun! I actually enjoyed it!) and by the afternoon it was snowing even harder (2 inches per hour so I hear). At our house we probably received about 12" of snow by 8 pm that night. Everything shut down, it was great. We took this wonderful walk right before it got dark on Friday; it was so peaceful and quite and white. It looked like lights were on outside long after the sun "set" because of the glow from the snow covered earth. It was probably one of my favorite snow days in recent memory (in part because we were also warm and cozy, the army of heaters couldn't have arrived any sooner than they did).

Both Noah and I were looking forward to a cozy, relaxing snow weekend when we woke up Saturday morning. We had no where to be and nothing that had to get done and were hoping to revel in the feeling of being inside and warm while it was snowy outside. The snow was very wet and heavy so it was collecting on tree branches and power lines; three trees in the ravine behind our house came down during the night not to mention a countless amount of smaller branches all around us. However, the house was still warm and cozy and safe...until the power went out at 10:30 in the morning...

Noah borrowed a shovel from our next door neighbor to clear off the driveway and learned that 80% of our county was out of power. Our neighbor (Isaac) and his wife grew up here and said the last time a storm like this had been through was 1993. Isaac thought our street would get power back sooner than others because we are actually located in Mars Hill, but said even so, it could be a couple of days before it came back on.

Our house was loosing heat fast, so while Noah shoveled the driveway I piled all of our newly purchased house plants (thanks Dad and Val!) into the middle of the room and covered them with a couple of sheets in hopes they would not freeze if the power really did stay off longer than 12 hours. Noah called Steven (who owns the yoga studio in Asheville) to make sure he had power there. Steven said we were welcome to stay the night there if we had to. We packed up a some blankets and pillows along with books and computers and first went into nearby Weaverville where our favorite coffee shop-Wellbred Bakery-was miraculously open. We stayed there all afternoon in hopes the power would come back on at home. At 4 pm, we called Isaac to get an update and the power was still off. We drove into Asheville for the evening.

We ended up taking our self out to dinner at an Indian restaurant in town that we had been planning on going to for Christmas, set up camp in the corner of the yoga studio, watched a DVD of The Office and went to bed hoping that our house would have power in the morning. That dream was not to be. We drove back home to a cold house, called our friend Darlene who lives an hour north in Jonseborough TN, packed my school stuff and drove up to stay with her. It was wonderful to get to visit with her despite the conditions. The roads were clear and wet and the drive was actually quite beautiful.

I received a call in the evening from school letting me know we would be having class on Monday, but that it would start at 10 instead of 8. Just before going to bed, we heard from Isaac-the power was back on! (Yay! I thought, my house plants might just survive!-they did). Only about 2/3 of my class made it to school Monday, and we started late every day this week due to early morning black ice. Other than that though, the drama of the storm really ended for us after the power came back on at home, since we could be warm and cook and check our e-mail. It warmed up Tuesday and today, but all the snow is not yet gone. Some people in the area were out of power until yesterday or even today, which is crazy. It makes one realize how important alternate sources of heating are and just how dependent on electricity our society is.

All in all, the snow has made it feel like Christmas (although, just today we were commenting to each other that all the snow melting made us think it was spring...). But, we can now say we lived through and survived WINTER STORM 2009 when our grandchildren ask about it years down the road. We were tough-we packed up and left when the house dropped below 60 degrees...I will say the ratio of cold/snow/storm to warmer/melting/sunny has been about perfect for my winter weather storm threshold. Go North Carolina!