2012 Snow Storm

Yes, there was a crazy snowstorm in Washington, which dumped about a foot of snow and left us without power for three full days. Thankfully, my Mom doesn't live too far away and one treacherous drive later, we were able to make it to her house, where she did have power. The last hill going up to my parents was probably the scariest. My Dad and Stephen insisted that we could make it up, however, so while the boys and I just walked to the house, my Dad shoveled the hill. Yes, our poor minivan did make it.

We definitely overestimated our ability to drive in snow. We have lived in Philly and Detroit during some pretty bad winters and had no problems driving around. We thought we were invicible. So on day one of the storm we drove the short distance to our friend's house to go innertubing behind their four wheeler. This, by the way, was totally awesome and I actually wanted to go for multiple rides. On the way home we had to drop our friend off down the street. We got stuck really good on their driveway and the only way we got home was because they had a nice truck that basically pulled us out to the main street. So there you go. We are officially Washington wimpy drivers. There is no reason to venture out. The roads are not plowed, salted, or gravelled (if that's a word). Seriously, treacherous.

So here are a few of the lessons we learned in preparedness. First, have a few extra five gallon tanks of gas. We ran out of our extra three gallons for the generator within seven hours. Every gas station was down within thirty miles so we couldn't buy gas anywhere especially with the roads being so bad that first and second day. The line at the Indian reservation was about two hours long on the third day without power. If this would have been a real emergency, we wouldn't have been able to use our generator at all after a day or so because we would have had no gas. Second, thank heavens for our wood stove which kept the house heated and was fun to cook on. I think we will need to make sure we have one of those in our next house. They are invaluable here. And then third, I probably should start building my long term food storage. We probably could only comfortably last a week. I really hope we can make it up to my parents in a real emergency so that we could live off their foresight and planning.

Overall, it was a good to be reminded why we need to be prepared. Here are some pictures from the fun. The snow was not very good for playing in after the first day, because then the snow just turned to freezing rain and ice. Here are some pictures from day one. I didn't take any pictures at my parents because we were totally fine and just played a lot of Kinnect and IPad games like Plants vs. Zombies. I am glad I don't own any of those electronics because my boys were obsessed.

Watching the snow come down.


Building a snow fort



Probably about 10 inches in this picture