I wouldn't really mind, since I love the snow normally and I couldn't care less about not being able to go anywhere for a little while, except for two little problems:
- I lost power at 4 AM on Saturday morning.
- I lost water at around 6:30 PM Saturday evening (and yes power was still out at the time).
The real problem was losing water, since now it suddenly meant I lost basic necessities, like being able to wash (myself or any fresh food), flush the toilet, etc. At first I'd feared it was because my pipes were freezing over despite me keeping water running on multiple faucets constantly, but calling the emergency maintenance line informed me it was a deliberate decision by maintenance specifically to avoid bursting pipes. I don't agree with this decision since they've already previously informed all residents to keep water flowing at a trickle when it's extremely cold out even with working heat but I digress. The point is that now I was looking at a situation that instead of being inconvenient was now potentially actually dangerous. As the hours dragged on with no end in sight in regards to getting power or water back (even though the snow had ended locally by around 11 AM Saturday), I was looking at potentially having to leave my place despite the warnings to avoid travel if at all possible, etc.
I probably would have left my place if I could have gotten out easily in fact since I had offers from my brother, who lives about 6-7 minutes away, and a coworker, who actually lives even closer, to stay at their places, where they'd either never lost power or had got it back in much shorter order than I did, but I couldn't easily do so. My car was in the garage - the garage that I can't open without electricity because it's in a separate building and all I have is an remote for the opener. To open it without electricity means calling up maintenance, who can open all garages with a master key that also disengages the opener. I called them at around 9:30 PM to let them know I'd like them to open it, but I got sick of waiting for them to show up and ultimately just decided to turn in by around 10:30, figuring I'll see how things look in the morning.
Ultimately, power finally came back on at 1 AM Sunday, so I was without power a grand total of 21 hours. Great, I'm in business right? Not so fast! The heat in my place uses a heat pump that draws water from the hot water heater through a large radiator, which heats the air in the venting. I may have had power, but water was still out so I remained without heat. Still, I could at least work on heating my place in....original and completely unsafe (i.e., fire hazard) methods. I fired up the oven, cracked the door open and set up a box fan to circulate the hot air coming out. Hey, it may dangerous and I'd obviously need to turn it off if I did go out, but so long as I was around to supervise it, I felt comfortable enough with it given I live alone and didn't need to worry about anyone else accidentally disrupting the setup. And - bonus - it's extremely effective! It actually heats my place quicker and more effectively than the aforementioned heat pump can. ;) It brought my place's temperature from 51 degrees at 1 AM to 66 degrees by around 8:30 AM, when I got up.
As of 8:30, even though I'd now had power for 7 1/2 hours, I still didn't have water though. At this point I was just waiting a little bit for it to warm up outside (as of then it was in the upper single-digits) to open my garage and shovel in front of it so I could get my car out and take a shower at my brother's place. I finally headed out shortly before 9:30 and did so in around 20 minutes, popping back into my place shortly before 10 o'clock to call him up and gather my stuff (clean clothes, etc.) before heading out. But wait! Just as I was about to call, glurgle-blurb-blurb-bloop-bloop-bloop. Hey, water's back, a mere 15 1/2 hours after it had been turned off. :P
So in the end, I managed just fine, but it was getting to the point of me having no choice but to venture out before long when all service was back to normal... Except that it's still not quite back to normal, because I don't trust my water for purposes of cooking, cleaning, etc. It's running clear now (after letting it run for a long time on all faucets), but initially it was visibly yellowish-brownish. So after a quick shower once the water at least looked clear, I ventured on out to Costco and picked up a nice big-ass pack of spring water in 1/2L bottles to use for the next couple days. I could boil water instead but I can't be bothered and besides, that would only take care of bacteria and the like that may be in the water; any minerals, etc., that shouldn't be there would still remain.
Despite the snow having ended fully a day earlier, the roads are still in pretty awful shape to be honest but I managed to get there and back in one piece, though I wouldn't want to have done so in a rear-wheel drive vehicle...lots of slipping on Montour Run Road, and it would have been really hard to keep control if I didn't have front-wheel drive.
I don't know if we'll be getting hit here or not by it (or to the extent to which we will if we are getting it), but I hear talk of another storm moving through the Ohio Valley and into the Northeast in a couple days. With any luck even if we do, it won't approach this one, but this was certainly one to remember!
Finally, a few pictures of the aftermath of the snowstorm. I'm not sure what our official total was but it's definitely in the 18-20" ballpark at least. ;)
First is an overview looking out from my place. You can see everything covered in lots of snow, and in the distance you can see what I mean about Montour Run being in pretty poor shape:
Next is a shot of the air conditioners for my side of the building. You get a pretty idea of the amount of snow we got from the large mounts on top of each one and theirs sides being mostly hidden by it as well ;) :
And finally, here's a shot of my leg after trudging through the snow to get these shots, knee bent so you can easily see just how far up my leg it came:
