Snow, Ice and Near Death

We got a massive ice storm here yesterday. Lots and lots of accidents shown on the news station's Facebook page. Todd was at work last night, though he knows how to drive on slick roads. Even with it only being a mile away in an SUV with brand new tires, it took him a half hour to get home.

All of this took me back to a time when I was a complete dumb ass about snow and ice, and nearly got myself killed.

Todd and I were living in Bay City, Michigan at the time. It was a Sunday and I had spent the day in Mount Pleasant watching the Daytona 500 with a friend. Todd had called me and told me that the snow was starting and I should get going. But I dawdled and left much later than I should have.

At the time, I was driving my VW New Bug. I had bought the car in the springtime and didn't take into account that it was super low to the ground and therefore not ideal for traveling in the snow.

I took it slow and the trip from Mount Pleasant, which normally only takes about an hour, took forever. Even going slow, I was sliding a lot. I was on the highway and just at my exit when I slid into a snowbank just off the road.

I started doing the go forward, go backward thing to unstick myself. I had been doing this for a few minutes when I looked in my rear view mirror. There was a semi bearing down on me, and I knew the driver wasn't in total control of his rig.

Just at that moment, I got unstuck and I gunned it a little to get out of the semi's path. I knew in my heart that if he had hit me, I would have been dead. The rest of the drive home, I sobbed my eyes out. I have never been so scared in my life.

Todd comforted me when I got home, but in typical Todd fashion he also told me that I should have listened to him. I agreed - I had been totally dumb for not listening to him and leaving sooner before the roads got so bad.

Since moving to NC nearly 10 years, I haven't had much chance to drive on icy roads. We don't get a lot of snow and when we do, things shut down. I usually just stay inside, especially since I started working from home.

Today I'm glad to be inside and not on the icy roads. I wouldn't want to have a repeat of that scary night all those years ago.

Southern SnowApocalypse of 2014

Snow is something I’m very familiar with. I grew up in Holland, Michigan which is right off the coast of Lake Michigan. Every winter we would get dumped on, snow-wise, because of the lake effect. It wasn’t odd to not see grass from November until March. I dislike snow a lot and was happy when we moved down to NC. We still get winter but it’s usually much milder and not as long.

Not this year though. Thanks to the polar vortexes we’ve gotten a ton of snow and zero degree temperatures. A couple of days ago, Atlanta was gridlocked because of the snow. We got a couple of inches here. My husband is great driver in snow but when he left for work on Tuesday, he didn’t get very far before he decided the roads were too bad and came home.

We have a unique perspective because of growing up in Michigan. Things are different down here because they just aren’t prepared for snow. Todd said the roads were so bad because the plow trucks weren’t plowing they were just salting. So it made it very dangerous.

I saw tons of posts on Facebook and Twitter of friends stranded, running out of gas and having to walk home. It’s crazy to think a few inches of snow could cause so much chaos but living down here we just don’t have as many winter resources down here.

Emily didn’t have school for three days because of the snow and cold this week. While I wish she could go to school I do feel better safe than sorry. A bus overturned not far from here on Tuesday when it was snowing so much. There were just minor injuries but it was very scary to even think about all those kids on that bus.

It’s supposed to be 40 today so the snow will be melting, ending the SnowApocalypse of 2014. Hopefully this will be the last of the horrible winter weather down here but I’m not holding my breath.