BlogIt is one thing to watch disastrous weather on TV, it is another to experience such conditions firsthand. We all know this, in theory.
Look at the picture – less than an hour ago it was a major road.
Our home, unfortunately, was directly in the path of both Nor’easters this year. The real March Madness is Nor’easter – enormous powerful storms playing with trees as easily as boys would play with sticks.
An important circumstance required us to brave the storm and journey to the Poconos, a week ago (felt like a month), an unfortunate time for commute, to say the least.
Coincidentally, when the second Nor’easter hit the same region (and our home, too), we were on the road again, and are now planning to return. Deja vu. The first storm already gave us more than enough experience, and we do not really want even to think about what is waiting for us back home after the second one.
Let’s start from the beginning.
We were on our way home last Saturday and we knew that the storm was on its way. We checked the forecast several times and optimistically decided that we have plenty of time to get there. It appeared that the Nor’easter did not listen to the same forecast and had started a couple of hours earlier than expected.
We were caught by the storm midway through our journey. It took us several hours to drive the same distance that normally required only an hour, even with heavy traffic. We were less than a quarter of mile from our house when the wind became so strong that it forced us to abandon our car in fear to hit a fallen tree or, even worse, to be hit by one. Some trees were down already and lay hidden under the thick layer of snow that was quickly accumulating on, what was once, a road.
We walked the rest of the way, barely recognizing that well-known pass, covering our faces with totally failed attempts to protect them from the icy rain and hail, mixed with the wet snow, that was bearing down from above. We saw similar scenes in movies about polar explorers and truly felt sorry for the characters because we knew they were supposed to die, but we have never expected to play such roles in real life.
The last hundred yards to the house were the worst. If the blizzard alone was not enough, the wall of fallen trees and torn wires had surrounded our house like the enchanted forest did in the Sleeping Beauty. Unlike the prince, though, we did not have his magic sword.
We got through, anyway! No power at home, of course – electric wires were down (some that were not down yet, in the meantime, supported trees hanging on them). On the bright side of the story, our generator was working and all six fallen pines, each about 60 to 80 feet tall, missed the house – although some were lying uncomfortably close.
We’ll definitely have more than enough firewood for the next decade.
Going back to our time in Siberia, we had experienced our fair share of epic snowstorms and hurricane force winds, plus we survived a couple more here, in the US – there is nothing pleasant about big storms, wherever you happen to be. Even a flying tree – a big one – is nothing new to us. During hurricane Sandy, we were relieved to watch it pass by our window.
But this storm! It seems that this Nor’easter surpassed them all.
At home we looked outside every time we heard a loud crack, to be sure that it wasn’t a tree bearing down on us. The snow was so heavy that sometimes it was impossible to locate the cause of that sound. Finally, exhausted, we went to sleep. The storm and wind continued throughout the night, orchestrated by the occasional sounds of trees hitting the ground or the jazz band of debris drumming on our roof.
The next morning brought with it bright sunlight and, if you didn’t look around, a feeling that spring was right around the corner.
But if you dared to look, the feelings were different… We have never been in a war zone and only saw imitations of bombing in war movies. What surrounded us that morning was, perhaps, very close to the image of a winter war zone. Check the slide show below – just a few pictures of what we saw from our porch.
We don’t want to post pictures of our neighbors’ houses that were seriously damaged or cars that were smashed by trees. Trust us – the situation was bad. But in the early morning, residents of all ages, from the community, started cutting trees and plowing roads, moving aside all the debris. No officials showed up in our area for the next two days – they had more important tasks, of course – except one driver working on our community’s plow truck – he came, looked around and said “Too much work!” And left…
The storms moved on. We stayed.
Until natural disasters hit us, we are all living in the fairy tale world of fictional security. Technological innovations are taken for granted everyday. We cut cable TV and land lines, because we are sure that the internet will consistently work forever. We replaced wood stoves with natural gas heaters and ovens, because we are sure that the pipes are there and the gas will never end. We don’t worry about electrical lines or cell phone services – until our connection to the world is severed. Our propane generator at home – backup for electricity problems – depends on propane delivery, which, we assume, is supposed to work at all times. (I still hope very much that it will!)
Today there are thousands of emergency workers in our area trying to restore the usual order of things. In a week (more or less) most of us will remember those several stormy days as an adventure or as an inconvenience, and we will be back to our daily fairy tale world of fictional security. Until the next time Mother Nature notices our over-dependency on our technological advances and decides to remind us where the real Power truly lies.
