Letters to Gage, Gabe and Grant: Snow Storm 3/3/14

Dear Gage and Gabe,

On Sunday night, some bad weather made its way to Bowling Green. There was talk and forecasts of a severe winter storm, but since we've heard it before and not seen results, we were a little skeptical. I had to work that night and I went in at 7pm. When I left the house, it was raining quite heavily. By the time I got to Scottsville Road in front of the mall (8 miles later), the rain had turned to ice and the roads were already a slushy mess. I made it to work safely and by 9 or so, our parking lot was a solid sheet of ice and there was a steady fall of sleet. The sleet converted to snow later that night and by the next morning, there was at least an inch of ice covering every surface and then coated in about 2 inches of snow. I remote started the Explorer (thanks again Daddy for the awesome Valentine's gift), but the heater was no match for the ice. I spent nearly 20 minutes scraping the ice off of the windshield, with a few breaks in between. As I was scraping the vehicle, I saw several cars get hung up in the intersection and have to be helped out. I was a little worried about getting out of the parking lot, but made it out without trouble.

Ice covered Explorer - scraping one patch of ice away at a time

The roads were completely covered in snow and ice. All schools were out of session and several businesses were closed, so there was minimal traffic. Each side of Scottsville Road was reduced to one lane and no one was going over 15 miles per hour. I got to Plano Road and traffic was stalled. A large truck pulling a trailer with some sort of load couldn't get up the hill onto Scottsville Road. A police officer had cross traffic stopped while the truck made his attempts, but after three tries, they decided to throw in the towel. I'm not sure what happened with that truck, but I'd say he had to turn around.

I made it home without incident. At the bridge close to the house, there was an electric pole completely broken in half. The electric company had just gotten there to replace the pole. I'm not sure how that happened, but they had it fixed within an hour. Our electricity went out for close to 20 minutes during the repair, but that was the only time we were without electricity. My normal commute of 18 to 20 minutes took nearly 45. I was so relieved to pull into our driveway and even more relieved to cuddle up with my boys.