Well what a difference a day makes. Actually, come to think of it, a day doesn’t make a damn bit of difference. Either way, there is a ton of fucking snow out here. When I left work at about 4:15 yesterday afternoon, we were unsure if we would be working today. I had a feeling that it would be a resounding no.
I already posted about last night, but after my post things got even fucking crazier. Remember I said the wind was blowing very hard? Well, it went from very hard to really fucking hard. I could hear thunder but I personally did not see any lightening, but people told me that had seen it last night. All I know is that I stared out my front window and watched the awesome, brute force of nature. The wind was blowing so hard that I was worried that my neighbor’s flag pole would snap right the fuck in half. The snow was blowing to such an extreme that it really made for quite the site to see. All in all, it was the worst weather I had ever seen.
A few minutes later I got a text from a friend who said his power had gone out. I spent the better part of an hour texting friends back and forth and watching the storm outside my window. It was truly remarkable. I had never seen anything quite like it before.
At about 5 am I received a text from a co-worker who said work was closed for the day. At that time I looked at the weather report on my phone and saw a civil emergency statement. What the fuck is that I thought? Turns out that the weather had gotten so bad overnight that most of the roads in my county were closed; I couldn’t go to work even if I wanted to. And believe me, I didn’t want to.
I slept until about 9 in the A.M. When I looked out my window I was overwhelmed with what I saw: more white than a KKK convention. Snow drifts up to my window. Cars buried under snow. My car though, for some reason, did not have much snow on it at all in spite of the fact that the cars next to it were buried. I knew then that even with a snow blower, it was going to take hours to get out of my driveway.
My brother and I were worried that the snow blower would run out of gas. My car being in the best position to leave, it was up to me to make my way down to the gas station to fill up a couple of gas tanks. By the time I made my way there, it was about 11am. I got there and walked up to the counter. The lady who was working there was out cold, her chin resting uncomfortably on her chest. I felt bad, but I had to wake her up. She confirmed what i had already known: she had been there all night.
We spent the better part of the afternoon clearing our drive and sidewalks along with the driveway of the elderly couple across the street. What’s great about a time like this is that everybody seems to come together to help each other. My other neighbor let me have the pick to sleep with anybody in his family! I choose his wife because, meh, why not?
I’m not complaining though about any of the stuff I had to do today or yesterday. It pales in comparison to the people who spent the night in their cars or on buses on Lake Shore Drive. If you haven’t had the chance to see the pictures or read the stories, you really need to check it out, the pictures are amazing. This storm pretty much crippled not only the entire city, not only most of Illinois, but much of the midwest as well.
In the annuals of Chicago winter history, people have often spoken of the blizzard of 1967. I was not around for that one, but I imagine that it was not too much different than what we went through the past 2 days. I was around for the blizzard of ’79 but was too young to have much of a recollection of it. And then there was the storm of 1999, I remember that one mostly because we had sent my mom to California to see relatives and she got stranded out there. This one that we just had though, certainly rivals anything that we have ever had before.
