When people talk about being 'buried' under snow, I think about my family really being buried in our cabin in a logging camp in the Black Range forest in New Mexico in 1947... I was six years old. We couldn't open the door to get out, and melting snow outside the two windows created thick solid blocks of ice preventing any exit. We were trapped inside for seven days.
Pictures taken by the first rescuers to arrive at the camp showed only about 2 feet of the chimneys of cabins (about 25 of them) visible above the snow.
I remember well how my step father rationed what food we had in the cabin - the day before we were finally dug out we had the last meal of Quaker Oats and canned milk. I always hated oatmeal after that week of so much of it... ~grim grin~
Oxygen was a problem - couldn't have a fire very long we quickly found - because the fire used oxygen we needed to breath. We could only have small ones for short periods of time.
Unfortunately two people died in their cabin - probably of oxygen deprivation.
Rescuers dug trenches (somehow) in the snow to get to the cabin doors, and I remember that my brother and I got into trouble playing in those long trenches... playing children most likely got in the way of adults trying to move 'the necessities' to and from cabins.
I say somehow, because those paths in the snow were close to 10 feet deep and more - far far above our heads... so I have often wondered how they went about the job.
It was more than a week before we could get a car out - it had to be pulled by a 'bulldozer' though a lot of mud.
We never went back...
I have to admit that it IS prudent to not drive around DC when there's a lot of snow. We've got a lot of immigrants that haven't ever seen snow. Many of those have never driven cars before coming here, either. That's a good enough reason to clear the driveway and the snowplow drifts, but then sit back and enjoy the fire and a good book.