More than two feet of snow fell on much of Harford County Friday night and into Saturday, burying cars and weekend plans, and forcing begrudging shovelers into the cold on a day when most look forward to never having to leave the sofa.
Schools, courts, local governments, and most everything else announced by mid-day Sunday that they would be closed Monday – leaving those snowed-in to contemplate spending their Super Bowl Sunday chipping away at their icy prisons, or watching the endless hours of pre-game festivities. I chose the former.
By the time the final flakes fell on Saturday, I had roughly 26 inches of snow fall in my area (Jarrettsville) and a monumental clean-up effort ahead of me.
I shoveled for three hours on Saturday evening. Long enough for the beautiful sun set to reveal just how much trouble I was in.
Doing some rough calculations in my head, I reckoned I had about seven hours worth of shoveling ahead of me on Sunday. Knowing the sun sets at about 5:30 p.m., I figured I had better start shoveling by 10:30 a.m. if I wanted to stand a chance of finishing before the weekend was over.
I was up and shoveling by 9:45 a.m. Sunday, but it didn’t take long, about noon or so, before the cavalry arrived (my dad) to help me finish up the job. Even with twice the manpower, we didn’t finish until after 3 p.m.
Afterward, my driveway and parking area resembled a canyon with four-foot embankments. Down by the street, where road crews had plowed in my driveway, the snow ended up more than six feet high on either side after I cut my way through.
Wind-burned, wet-toed, and aching, I retired early (without watching much of the football game). Once I set my shovel down, I didn’t set another foot outside the rest of the day/evening/weekend.
One of the last things I saw before turning off the television Sunday night was a weather report. Six to 12 more inches of snow are expected on Wednesday. Good thing I didn’t put away my shovel.
Other items of note from a snowy weekend:
– I have two satellite dishes on my roof and both were completely covered in snow. Inexplicably, my DirecTV dish never went out and I had television service all weekend. Unsurprisingly, my HughesNet dish remained frozen and useless, leaving me without Internet service until Sunday evening (hence this late report).
– I lost the limb of a mighty red cedar, which cracked under the weight of the snow and ice, but never lost power as the cables and wires proved more resilient than the branch of the old tree.
– None were happier to see me break out the shovel than my dogs – none of which are taller than 26 inches when standing on all fours. They’re enjoying the backyard labyrinth and the relief that came with it.
Anyone else want to share their harrowing tales of surviving an historic winter storm?
Poor Brian! Your readership needs to take up a collection and buy you a snow blower–I’ll kick in the first $10! My dogs were so funny. They were up all night barking at the snow plows every time they passed by our street, but at least that meant we were getting plowed. My little dog Ravyn went nuts (cabin fever?) and kept headbutting snowbanks and trying to burrow her way into them. Glad you are dug out. Put on some Ben Gay and get ready for the next one tomorrow. I think your dad will be taking his phone off the hook though. Everyone please be safe when shoveling and walking around in the mess.
I love snow. I love being snowed in. I have a husband and 3 teenagers to do the shoveling while I read a book,surf the internet, or take a nap. I keep my great niece while my niece works. Her dad (my husband’s brother) had back surgery Friday morning so my niece stayed the night here to save them some time in the morning. I live in a small court that didn’t get plowed until someone came with a front loader Monday evening. You can’t drive a little Saturn with snow well above the bumper so great niece was snowed in here from Thursday-Monday evening. She’s 2, by the way, and I call her my Sunshine. She spends every day here and stays the night often, so she didn’t even notice her mom wasn’t coming. I was trying to think of excuses for a reason that my niece would need to drop her off yesterday, but my niece wasn’t having any of it. She was not happy about not seeing her baby, but I loved every minute of it. She woke up yesterday morning saying, “Go Aunt Sandy’s now” LOL. What is better than having a beautiful 2 year old’s love? She even helped shovel, with a small garden shovel. Wish I could post a picture!
My 15 year old, 6 foot tall, son works at an assisted living home. He can walk or ride his bike, it’s not far. He gets called in when most others can’t make it. He walked through the snow while it was deep and still snowing Sat. morning at 6:30 AM. They asked him to stay the night to help out with the resident’s needs, he works in the dining room normally. He did laundry, cleaning, making beds, etc. They told him not to clock out so he even got paid to sleep. He worked until Sunday at 8 PM and walked home. Husband was disappointed to not have his help shoveling, he’s a strong kid training to be a Marine. But he had our 2 skinny teenage daughters and the 2 year old to help. Son is saving for a car, so this next paycheck should help him!
I love to look out the windows and watch the snow, the more the better, it’s so warm and beautiful when you don’t have to touch it!!
It appears that Chapter 2 of this saga is upon us with this Tuesday/ Wednesday storm calling for another foot and a half on top of what’s already too much snow. Great for a ski resort bad for Aberdeen, and the rest of the cities, counties, and state. Once again Aberdeen DWP dropped the ball in Windemere and from the looks of things, most of the town. One thing that the last storm, and most likely this one, did was bring neighbors together. We helped each other shovel, snow blow, and clear our own sections of street that plow trucks rode over but didn’t bother to plow until they became glazed with ice, ie TOO LATE. I’m not going to point fingers at the mayor or call any council members, but we pay Doug Miller as a city manager and frankly I don’t have faith in him managing a little league team after the latest disappointments in city services. Overseeing day to day operations is one thing but overseeing a crisis, like a blizzard, is another, and not to beat the same drum, Mr. Miller has failed.
If equipment is the problem or manpower or outside contractors then let the citizens, the taxpayer, ie the EMPLOYERS of those working in city government know.
The tax break, for election purposes only, was a joke and it has come back to bite Aberdeen in the you know what. On a wider scale, Maryland isn’t doing much better with the tax and spend O’Malley circus in Annapolis and maybe, just maybe, all of the federal money (that is ours to begin with) that was wasted on bail outs of private corporations could have been put to better use in dealing with blizzards in the midwest and east, mud slides on the west coast, and I’m certain other natural disasters that will be forthcoming.
Funny how a little bit, well a couple of feet, of frozen precipitation can open one’s eyes up in a sense that we can see the fun that the kids are having, see the friendships in our neighbors, and see the faults of poorly run and mismanaged government.
Well said RWinger. The half vast attempt at snow clearance last weekend is really going to bite Matt Lapinsky in his gross incompetence today. They plowed one lane down these side streets, not very well by the way. Now where are they going to put this latest snow. They can’t afford to do things right the first time but then somehow manage to afford to go and correct the piss poor job they did. This is a perfect example of how incompetence, poor management and arrogance pile up and show what a crappy government we really have.
Dave-you should have heard the response I got when I asked if they could come plow out a space for the patrol car on my street. Not only was the receptionist horribly rude, but also said that at 4pm on Monday(I believe, though could be wrong on the day) all the plow crews had gone home?!?! Ok, so I get that they have alot to do but can’t they break the crews up into “shifts” so you arn’t overworking anyone but the clearing of the roads gets done? Our road was still ice and is now even worse, but when I went up to Cronin that neighborhood was plowed down to pavement. Hmmmm, and we wonder why people say there is different treatment depending on where you live in the city. None the less, I left a very detailed voicemail for the mayor explaining my deep disappointment yet again in our city’s leadership.
It may be Lapinsky but Miller needs to set the tone. I thought that they were running multiple shifts to split the crews up, apparently not. This is a Doug Miller misstep for not including scheduling in his emergency plan, if there was an emergency plan. Lapinsky should have an emergency operations plan as well that staggers hours or assignments so that the task at hand is completed in an efficient manner.
The good news, according to a Smarty O’Malley press blurb, is that both storms are being treated as one so Maryland can apply for federal assistance. Of course the counties will apply to the state and municipalities will have to apply to the counties for a couple of bucks.
I plan on putting another log or 2 on the fire and relaxing to the sounds to wind whipping trying not to envision the next phase of Operation Dig Out.
Been pretty pleased with the work in HdG. Of course, you’re not going to get down to the bare pavement or the whole width of the street, but we’ve been seeing plows consistently through both snow storms. We don’t live in the downtown part of HdG, don’t know how it looks down there. They’re doing a nice job in our development, all things considered!
I see that the American Legion in Edgewood was destroyed when the roof collapsed from snow yesterday. I don’t think that there were any injuries.