Thanks for The Blizzard

With The Blizzard of 2013 barely behind us (refusing to actually refer to it as "Nemo", its just too silly) many thoughts are swirling in my head and with nowhere else to go I am putting them here.  After about 18" of snow in 24 hours, 2 days without power, and 5 days of being mostly cooped up; life feels a bit upside down.

Like many here in RI this was our second significant natural disaster in less than 3 months.  Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy gave us 3 1/2 days without power and destroyed homes as close as a mile from ours.  Even so, somehow this blizzard seemed to have much more impact on us and our feeling of security.  Maybe because it was a bit of a blindside to us; we started out in the predicted 1-3" zone, then it was 3-6", then over the course of 36 hours we had slowly crept into the zone of a possible 18-24" snowfall.  Even so we (the hubster & I) have seen big snow before.  We lived in the mountains of Idaho for a year (B.C.-before children) and had 3-4' of snow accumulation in a winter.  That winter the dogs used a 4x4 shoveled area for their toileting needs and we traveled through a tunnel-like walkway to reach our truck every morning.  We even lost power there a couple of times due to storms, but really not too big of a deal.  This was different.  Maybe because we have kids now, maybe since it impacted such a large area around us, hard to say exactly but I am sure we will never forget the experience.

We prepared a little for the storm but certainly could have done more.  A quick shopping trip (by Thursday night the stores were out of nearly everything, including salad!), charged some batteries, turned the heat up to get the house warmer.  We already had shovels, scrapers, salt, etc.  Someone at work had even offered to bring us a generator if we did lose power.  The snow started Friday morning and by Friday night the trees around us had limbs weighed down and bending precariously under the weight of heavy wet sticky snow.  The Blizzard hadn't even hit yet.

By daylight the snow had stopped falling and we had a good 12-18" on the ground.  The power went out at 9:30pm and the house was cool by Saturday morning but liveable with some layers.  Fortunately our stove top is propane so we could still cook and make hot drinks, we whipped up some oatmeal and coffee in the press pot.  The Hubs was antsy to make his first scouting run out into the powdery stuff and he came back with a serious face; "Its a disaster out there, a real mess."  The snow had pulled down several small trees over the entrance to our 100 yard-long driveway; the plow guy couldn't plow us out even if he was making the rounds, which meant we couldn't get a generator in or even opt to abandon ship for a friend's house with electricity. The temperature was supposed to fall to 11 degrees Saturday night. 

After some calls we had the promise of a borrowed chainsaw and borrowed generator from my work...as soon as the driving ban was lifted and the nearby highway was opened to general traffic.  That couldn't be long right?  It wasn't until Saturday evening that we had a generator running noisily behind our place and extension cords snaked through the windows powering a few necessities (space heaters, lamps, fridge, cell phones).  After a pasta dinner on paper plates and a family board game it was off to bed.

The next morning our kitchen was 45 degrees.  I bundled up the boys (much to their displeasure) for breakfast and we cranked up the 3 space heaters we had in the kitchen area.  After 2 hours we were up to 50, after 4 hours we were almost to 55.  We opted out of church since someone would have to stay home and keep the heat going (Hubs) and I didn't feel adventurous enough to travel the roads alone in their snow-covered state.

We did make it out for a fast food lunch in a warm place about a mile from our home.  On the short drive we saw roads closed due to a broken power pole, a transformer on the ground, lines in the water, trees laying over power lines and slush or giant snow piles over everything.  This was not even close to over.

After the little one's nap I ushered two grouchy boys outside for some snow play time.  We found that it was actually warmer to bundle up and be active outside than to be sedentary under blankets inside.  Thanks to dad's ingenuity they soon delighted themselves with a homemade snow slide and igloo and I tried to help build a snowman out of the powdery dry stuff that had covered all of Friday's super sticky snow.  Then it happened, the big kid had to go Number Two.  "I'll take him." said dad, and they headed in.  "There's an alarm going off in here!" he shouted as they entered.  It was the carbon monoxide detector.  We couldn't make it stop going off and couldn't decide what the cause could be; candles? space heaters? a leak from the non-operational stove/furnace/water heater? the generator?

Long story short (we'll save that for another time) we ended up with 3 fire trucks and a gang of firemen airing out our house for us due to a slow buildup of CO from the generator's exhaust coming in through the nearby bulkhead.  A tad embarrassing.  We squeezed in a late dinner of carry out pizza after the flashing lights pulled away.  Adam headed out for a fuel run before bed, he came back to report all the gas stations were out of gas, the last one he stopped at had just enough to fill his can before the pump shut off.  "It should get us through the night." he said.

The power came back on for us around 11:30 that night.  And so ends our tale; or does it?  Do things like blizzards and hurricanes and other hardships just happen?  Is there a reason behind any of these experiences?  Do we just get through it and move on?

How many otherwise seldom pondered things have been brought to the forefront of our minds only through circumstances that leave us powerless and fearful, even angry?  Without a natural disaster would we notice how many people and how much work it takes to keep the electricity running and keep the roads passable?  Would we think about how to survive without the modern conveniences of life if they were never ripped from our tightly grasped hands?  And how to be prepared for these types of situations when they inevitably happen?  Would we have even an inkling of what it is like for the 1.5 billion people in the world that have no electricity, ever, of any kind?  I believe this is an opportunity to remember how thankful we truly are for the "everyday blessings" we have access to instead of focusing on our everyday problems and issues and likes and dislikes and our house that's too small, car that's too old, stomach that's too fat, bills that are too high and life that is never quite good enough or exactly what we would like it to be.

I might disgust some out there by saying it but all-in-all I am thankful for The Blizzard.  There, I said it; and here are some reasons why: thanks for my boys that kept my spirits up with their love of snow play and complete lack of complaints about the cold, thanks for my husband who worked non-stop to shovel snow from a huge driveway and deck, hand-sawed trees, build snow structures, kept the heat running, routed and rerouted cords and made runs out for supplies, thanks for the time spent unplugged reading books and playing games with the kiddos, thanks for public servants like electric-line workers, road crews and firemen, thanks for carbon monoxide detectors, thanks for those that are generous and willing to loan things they have to spare like generators and heaters, thanks for all the friends that care about us and offered to take us in if we needed it, thanks for the reminder that God and His creation will always be larger and more powerful than man could ever become, and thanks for bringing us safely through a situation that could have gone differently.

Some would say "I don't need a blizzard to be thankful, I can just be thankful."  We should all strive for that lofty goal, but can we attain it?  My belief is not really, not unless we have a glimpse of what it is to be without that which we are thankful for.  Since I am not one to voluntarily turn off my heat and lights in the dead of winter...thanks for The Blizzard.