Surviving The Storm

The phone rang at 6:07 on Friday morning. I was in bed, and the phone was in the other room; I let it ring while I snuggled deeper under the blankets, and try to let sleep enfold me again. I figure that it's the school's robot calling to say there was no reason to get up out of bed that early to get the kids off to school - there was a snow storm coming; hell, it was already here. I always find it frustrating that they would call that early to wake you up and tell you not to bother waking up. I guess most people would be about to wake up for the day at that time, anyway; I am not most people though, and the irony isn't lost on me. I distantly hear my children stumbling around the kitchen about 30 minutes later; a while after that, I hear our car pulling into the driveway - my husband returning from work. At some point, I feel him snuggle into bed with me, and I drift off to sleep again.


By the time I do crawl out of bed to the musical sounds of the children destroying the house and fighting with each other, there are about 3 inches of snow on the ground. The kids have eaten breakfast, and then some, played some games, and are restless to go out into the cold, white world beyond. My youngest pulls on his snow suit, hat, and gloves; our tiny dog follows him out wearing her sweater. She lasts about ten minutes out there before I hear her whining to be let back in. The snow steadily pours from the sky. It's bittersweet for me; gorgeous, but has also cancelled my plans for the following day, which were kind of important. There is nothing that can be done about it, though. By 2pm, there's almost 6 inches of white blanketing the world outside our home, and still it pours down. The power flickers incessantly and I find myself restless and annoyed, unable to just enjoy the beauty of the snow, which is uncommon for me.

I was finally able to get my mother on the phone to ask if she could take my place on Christmas with my 15 year old. He lives closer to her, and they don't get the weather that we do - maybe an inch of snow over there towards the middle of the state; an inch that quickly melts into slush, and then dissolves into nothing. I say that I will send her money to take him shopping, because the weather has not only cancelled my plan to do so the next day, but promises to dump more snow and ice on us Christmas Eve through the day after Christmas. The 15 year old is going to be extremely disappointed that I won't be showing up, however I know that it will cheer him up to see his grandmother and still be able to go shopping. My mom agrees to this arrangement, says she's happy she can help. I feel relieved, though still not looking forward to hearing the disappointment in my child's voice when I have to tell him that I can't be there as planned; I am pretty disappointed about it, too.

I don't get the chance to tell him, though, because the electricity dies dramatically at 5pm. My husband had just measured out the snow - a little over 9 inches by then - and as soon as we post our update to our friends out in cyberspace, a tree bounces off of the transformer out our back door. It sounds like a bomb goes off, twice, and the white world outside goes purple in time with the booms. The house is plunged into darkness as the sun sets. My first thought is, "oh damn...," followed closely by wondering if something has caught fire. My husband goes outside to check and doesn't see anything so I think, "thank god we have charcoal so we can still make dinner." We set out to do so; I wrap chicken in aluminum foil with some brown sugar, onion, and barbeque sauce while the children contemplate the situation. We play games like, "How Many Christmas Songs Can You Sing," and when their excitement gets to be too much to bear, we play "Please Don't Make Me Send You To Your Room; It's Dark." My husband gathers batteries while I gather candles and a book. My book light is bright enough to illuminate part of the living room all by itself, and the kids decide to try to do a puzzle, and then color a bit, and then finally read, as well. My daughter reads books to her brother, and he actually sits still for the duration.

At some point we realize that we don't actually own a manual can opener, so we wrap up some potatoes to throw on the grill. The food takes forever to cook, and by the time it's done, the kids are both asleep and refuse to get up to eat. The house is still relatively warm; it's only been about 3 hours since the lights have gone out. We have a small radio playing - the only two stations it picks up are country and christian, and they could be local stations, or not; we don't normally listen to either. No one is really saying anything about the weather, and we give up looking outside to try to gauge the snowfall. We let the kids sleep in the living room with the radio playing, and my husband and I go to our own bed - me, with my trusty book and book light and mp3 player. We say that the next day we'll let the kids pick out a movie, and all go sit in the car together with the heat on, with our portable dvd player plugged in. I read until I can't keep my eyes open, flip off the book light, and sleep. I fall into dream after dream of being stuck in the snow, of being somewhere in our car with the battery dead, of being cold and lost, of being terrified for my children.

I wake up at some point, it's still pitch black, my husband is awake. He leans over to kiss me and I jump because he's scared the hell out of me. He says it's ten 'til five - our cellphones have become time-telling paperweights. We curl back into the covers and sleep.

When we wake on Saturday, the house is decidedly colder. You can see your breath puff out into the air with each exhale or spoken word. We are all bundled up in layers of clothes and blankets. Our tiny dog stays glued to my lap under the blanket to keep warm. I'd left her uncrated so she could sleep with the kids during the night and share the warmth; I'm repayed with clean-up duty as she watches on, tail wagging and head cocked to the side. My husband shovels our road, roughly 500 feet of it, before realizing that the town hasn't plowed our main road, 5 miles out from town. We are stuck in a little over a foot of snow, and ill prepared. We have a miniscule amount of charcoal left, and the steaks we lay out for dinner don't have a chance to thaw because we're basically living in a refrigerator at that point. We contemplate trying to wash our dirty dishes in the snow outside, and I'm simultaneously revolted, even though it's a plausible idea - we do have soap, afterall - and also terrified of the thought of all of that cold on my already frozen hands. At around 2pm, my husband says he is going to try to make it to the store in the car. I am instantly terrified for him, for the possibility that none of us will ever see him alive again, but do my best to swallow my terror; we have to find a way to get supplies and keep our children safe. A can opener, and more batteries, food that doesn't have to be cooked, and more charcoal. Water [plain - both to wash hands, and to give to our dog to drink, and maybe even find a way to make some tea] - we have plenty of bottles of flavored water, but never thought to get some straight up plain stuff. Disposable goods we can eat with. A kerosene heater and some kerosene, if it's to be found. Booze, if we're lucky! I write down a list, and scribble the phone number to reach my 15 year old so my husband can tell him what's going on, and why I didn't show up, and that it will be okay.

By the time 5pm rolls around again and my husband isn't back, I start fighting off full blown panic. I pace the house, peering out through the windows, looking for headlights or a flashlight or any sign that he is coming home. It takes him another hour, and by then I am weak with worry. He walks in the door and I cling to him as he tries to catch his breath from hiking up our road; the car can't make it up. He starts the charcoal for me while I prepare the steaks, and then he makes several trips back and forth to the car to bring up most of what he has bought. There's no heater - Wal-Mart doesn't even sell them [*headdesk*]. He's exhausted, and cracks open a beer as he sinks into a chair. He'd spent about 4 hours digging a foot of snow off of a very long road that is all hill, and then another 45 minutes walking up and down that hill to bring up our desperately needed supplies. He is my hero, and we would be lost without him. There is a knock at our door; our neighbor says the car will have to be moved [yes, it is blocking our one lane road - we didn't expect anyone would be going in or out at night, and we only have one neighbor that shares the road]. The neighbor's father is trying to get through... as is the electric company. My husband says he will have to shovel more snow, and I feel horribly for him, yet hopeful that we will have electricity back soon. He's gone for another hour; when he comes back, he said the electricity guy said not to be too hopeful about the power tonight - they've spotted the tree that bumped the transformer.

The children have fallen asleep again about 30 minutes before dinner is done. It's about 7pm, and it's hellishly cold in the house; all you can think about is the numbness in your toes and fingers, and the endless shiver your body is doing to stay warm. It hadn't reached the teeth chattering stage, as of yet, and I am loath to even think of getting to that point. We try to wake the kids up, beg them to eat the warm food so they can keep up the warmth in their little bodies. This rational plea is met with their cries to be left alone so they can sleep. My husband and I start to freak out a little. He asks me if I think they'll be okay, and I lie and say yes [saying no is not an option in my mind, something I refuse to even contemplate; it's like pondering what to do should the sun happen to implode and you have enough time to give it consideration]; I'm fighting off panic again, and wracking my brain to come up with a plan of action. I breifly think of our car down at the end of the road; we have plenty of gas, and if we run the car with a window cracked a little, we will be warm, even if a little cramped. I imagine the shrieking protests of my frozen children being walked, or even carried, all that distance in 30 degrees or so. We decide that we will all bundle up in the same bed with all of the blankets and keep them warm. This seems like it will work, at least for the night.

About ten minutes after my husband carries our son to bed with him, I am still on the couch reading. I've nearly read the entire book - Cleaving, by Julie Powell. My daughter is curled up on the chair beside me, buried to her nose in blankets, and I contemplate curling up with her while I finish reading to keep both of us warm. Two chapters left. The lights come on, and I sit as still as possible, hold my breath, wait for it to flicker back out or hear more thundering booms from the transformer outside. It stays on, and I jump up and turn the thermostat up to 75, and go smile at my husband, and try not to cry with relief. We have made it through 28 hours of cold and dark and many moments of panic and fear. Contemplating your children both hungry and literally freezing to death, or your husband sliding off the road in the car and into the creek, trying to get back home through injury and hypothermia; these are things I never want to have to think about again.

Our phone and internet are still out, and our car is currently buried in snow again in our neighbor's yard, but we have heat and food and satellite tv and video games. And each other, which is most important of all. I won't lie and say I don't miss the internet, though! Our internet and phone both are through the same company, and they have no estimate of when it should be working again. We don't even have reliable cellphone service at our house because we're just that far out in the woods on the side of a mountain. There's only one spot you can stand in the yard on a clear day and get 2 bars of signal... and that's if you're lucky. There's no one else's wifi for my netbook to steal. I'm also hoping we can dig our car out of our neighbor's yard and get to town before the next storm hits later this week. We will need more stuff, and I'd like to get that heater, if there's still any to be had... at the least, get the one from our landlord, just in case. I am crossing my fingers that we won't have to use it. But our power is already flickering again.