OK I can’t help myself.
THREE lousy feet of snow and your life is put on hold?
Get the shovel out.
We had 46 feet in 3.5 months last winter (at sea level) and no work or school was missed. (Alaska)
You guys need to buck up.
No, dude, I think you misunderstand. Here in the DC area, we had three feet of snow fall in 24 hours. We had whiteout conditions so bad that the snowplow drivers couldn't see to shovel and were told to stop by the side of the road. Hundreds of thousands of people had no electricity for up to a week. In Pennsylvania, the governor closed the major roads.
In this part of the US, we aren't equipped to deal with this much snow all at once, because we've never encountered this before in our history. People don't tend to have snowblowers, and a lot of folks don't even have high winter boots or snowshovels. We just don't need them, as a rule.
I used to live in the Colorado Rockies, and I have also lived in New York State and other cold climates, so I'm not unused to high snow and cold weather. I have been on top of a 10,500 foot mountain in a whiteout with hurricane-strength winds. But this storm represented a real problem. Even when (after many hours of work) my young son and I dug to the end of our driveway, there was no point as we did not have a snowplow come to our neighborhood for several days. I would have had to flounder in thigh-deep snow (no snow shoes here!) for some miles to get to a road that was cleared.
Besides, no one with any sense builds in such a place. My ancestors who lived in Oswego NY left there 200 years ago due to the snow ~ the NEVER ENDING lake effect snow that can make that stuff you sometimes get in Alaska look like a dusting.
They lived under a 50 foot snow one too many times. If you are doing that time to move!