I swear I had 1/2 inch of snow on my hat when I came back in. Lightning, thunder, it was freaky.
Had a little bit of snow blowing to do today...
Posted on 02/09/2013 1:51:46 PM PST by PA Engineer
FARMINGVILLE, N.Y. — Lorna Jones decided to brave the blizzard on Friday, venturing onto the Long Island Expressway as the snow began piling up. So did many others here in Suffolk County.
They all came to regret it.
“It’s terrible. It’s cold. I don’t know how long I’m going to be here,” said Ms. Jones, 62, a nurse who stalled near the town of Brookhaven, less than a mile from her destination. “Are there any plans to help us?”
She said she had slept fitfully in her car, with no food or water, and only a bottle of Listerine next to her on the passenger seat.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
During the Blizzard of ‘78 thousands of cars were stranded on Rt 128 (AKA:Interstate 95) in suburban Boston.Dozens of the occupants died of exposure,CO2,etc.
If she had got out of the car and been killed by a snowplow everyone would be saying “See, she should have stayed in the nice, warm car and waited for rescue”. I remember how close I came to getting hit just changing a tire on the shoulder of an interstate once (yes, in a snowstorm).
On a thread last night that got pulled for a flame war, someone had a map showing the snow fall rates. There was a giant pink band representing 5” an hour in an arc from Lowell MA, directly over my house in Conn (halfway between Hartford and New London), all the way to about Islip NY.
We went from maybe 6 inches to 18 in what seemed like a heartbeat.
The North Shore of Long Island was hit much harder than the South Shore.
From what I last watched on News 12 Long Island, they were STILL trying to clear the LIE...which is the biggest hub-bub here to get anywhere!
The regular snow plows could not remove the amount of snow that fell.
If I remember correctly,it used to be the plows were out and about (I saw them on my way home, NOT plowing) at 1st snow accumulation.
Guess NY is running out of money (eyeroll).
Make that OTHER PEOPLES money.
This is Long Island—it is dullingly flat.
wrong, wrong wrong....there were 75 mile per hour winds, temperatures in the teens, and withour some serious winter garb, you wouldn't stand a chance of mAKING IT THROUGH 3 FEET OF SNOW,,,(whoops)...Stay in your car, if you have fuel, and most do, use it wisely to keep warm. You can last for three days, comfortably, if you are smart....do not leave the car!!!! Your car is easy to spot, you, under a snow bank, are impossible to spot. These people are in a major metropolitan area....they know the plows are hours away....stay there!!!
Suck some snow, eat your dog then gargle with the listerine.........How simple is that?
No dog? Surely someone in a car behind you has one........make them an offer.
That, of course, assumes you are smart enough not to go out in a well publicized blizzard with an almost empty tank.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Granted, but just a gut feeling tells me this was never taken into consideration either.
I do realize about the ‘gas powered heater’ aspect, I was just taking it to the worst case scenario as I have no ‘reason’ to believe this particular case would apply here...<: <:
It took me a while but now I get it.
The NYT interviewed these people, then DIDN’T
help them...?
Come on, we’ll make room. Jump in next to the cameraman...?
Or was it, Don’t worry a snow plow is just a few miles back...?
I saw it as a yellow blob in CT on the NWS radar. I figured it was rain or sleet because no way snow could have that much echo. I also looked up the hourly reports at various stations and they would say something like freezing fog. That was by far the highest rate snow I have seen in New England (where I grew up).
I live in Rapid City, actually just west of it in the Hills, and we’re due for a major blizzard tonight. All the gas tanks are full in our 4WD vehicles, we keep emergency kits in them year round, our snow plow is on alert, as is our generator. We also have a years worth of food and supplies in our basement. Yep, we’re preppers.
I swear I had 1/2 inch of snow on my hat when I came back in. Lightning, thunder, it was freaky.
Had a little bit of snow blowing to do today...
Stay safe! Those plains blizzards must be worse with so few trees to slow down the wind.
Loved South Dakota when I visited (in summer).
How are you two doing? Damn, it did come down fast! I say we got 2.5 feet, maybe more.
I’m going out West tomorrow to shovel Mom out.
I agree with you, NGZ. We were told that the brunt of the storm would not hit until after sundown. That said, I have a few observations from my lair here on Long Island:
1. Many people in Suffolk County (the easternmost part of the Island) do not work here. They work in Nassau County or in NYC. What was rain and much lighter snow in those places was a blizzard here, but most companies did not close at all, and many did not even close early.
2. Most people began their treks home from work/school MUCH earlier than usual. Rush hour did not start at the usual 4:30-5:00 hour, but from 1:00 onwards. At that time, the weather was unpleasant, but certainly no worse than other unpleasant days.
3. Even on a GOOD day, rush hour is no fun and the weather early Friday afternoon was rainy/sleety and cold. I saw unusually bad traffic all throughout the afternoon, hours before the brunt of the storm was to hit. (The reports I heard were for light snow in the afternoon, getting heavier as the day wore on, to blizzard conditions after sundown.) The traffic was literally at a bumper-to-bumper stand-still, leaving the people with nowhere to go, and no way to get off the roads they were on.
4. I suspect that many or most of the people stranded had begun their journeys hours beforehand and due to the very VERY slow traffic got stuck right in the middle of the storm. And when that storm DID hit (hours earlier than expected), it dumped a LOT of snow very quickly. We tried to keep up with it, but gave up around 9:00 pm.
5. For the first time I can remember, snow removal has been an unmitigated disaster. I have seen only ONE snow plow since yesterday when it attempted to clear my street. This was no little pickup truck, either, but a full-sized mammoth. It got stuck right in front of my house and spun its wheels for at least 45 minutes. I’m not even sure how it got out (I stopped watching and when I looked again it was gone). I later learned that it was one of the new natural gas-powered trucks the Town just got instead of the old diesel-fueled ones they used to use. The street remains impassable.
6. This is one of the worst winter storms I’ve ever seen. It was very, very bad out last night.
Regards,
I am sorry to hear what happened to you, but your statements put it all into perspective. Didn’t know that bosses were expecting employees to finish the workday with so much snow on the immediate horizon. Stay safe, keep warm and God Bless.
Love the picture. Your drive looks about twice the length of mine. We only get big snowstorms here in NW Virginia every 5-6 years. Sold my blower in 07 after no blower-worthy snow for about 4 years. We had two bad storms in 09/10 and I shoveled by hand. Took two days each time.
To her credit, she is a nurse and I’ve heard reports of nurses that haven’t been allowed to leave their hospitals and have been at work since Friday morning.
I would cut nurses, EMT’s a bit of slack.
I’m not, thank God, on the plains. I have 40 acres of Ponderosa pine protecting our home.
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