Y’know that small snow/ice storm we had last week? And how it’s been in the 40s most days since? Our driveway is still ice-covered. What with it being steep, dirt, and long, we couldn’t even get the cars up yesterday. Amber’s ended up doing a 180 and sliding back down; I managed to park it at the head of the driveway by sledding the thing down the hill. A good chunk of the rural road we’re on is in the same shape — we’ve got to shift into first to make our way along it. This would be giggle-worthy a few miles away, in Charlottesville, but up in the Southwest Mountains, weather doesn’t work quite like it does on flatland.
Which is why I’m battening down the hatches right now — because it’s only getting worse from here. There is a lovely, dense snowfall at the moment. It’s 24°, and so it all seems rather non-threatening. But a warm front is due to pass through any minute now, raising the temperature to right around freezing. So all of this will turn into sleet and freezing rain, with an emphasis on the latter. That means downed power lines. And that means many days of no electricity. (And that means my server will go down and, thus, this website. I invested in a Dreamhost account yesterday, but I won’t have that switched over in the next hour, so it won’t do any good this time around.) No electricity means no lights, no water, no cooking (damned electric stove), no internets, and no washing of dishes or clothes.
I’m scattering candles about the house, putting fresh batteries in the flashlights, filling every available container with water (it’s all about having a good supply of flushin’ water), stacking wood by the stove, charging rechargeable batteries, and trying to do everything that I need to do that requires electricity that I may not be able to do for days and days.
Many years ago, in the early 90s (I’m thinking 1992 1994) we had The Great Ice Storm. Several inches of ice were deposited on everything. It was damned near two weeks before it melted. Nobody had power, merely stepping outside was dangerous (I didn’t believe it until I took a single step outside and fell flat on my ass, slicing open my hand on an icicle; I went back inside immediately), and everything shut down for many days. It became obvious that crampons are an intelligent investment, that keeping a few weeks’ supply of food is just good common sense—
Oh, Lord — in the middle of writing that paragraph, I saw this post at Raising Kaine.
I gotta go. I think I’m going to batten a few more hatches than I’d planned on.
I think those ice storms were in January 1994. Had several, and it got so cold it froze the buried water line from the well to the apartment where I was moving to. Broke the exposed sprinkler pipe elbow on the Second Street side of the Central Branch of the JMRLibrary. I remember looking out the office window and seeing what seemed to be a firehose pouring water onto Second Street. (Soon: more ice!) We had several ice storms that year, and I didn’t lose power (I was on the Co-op, then) but shitloads of people I knew did. An SUV got you no points–I even refused to drive down the hill to my duplex at one point in my SUV.
I invested in a kerosene heater, thanks to the advice of a Japanese friend. I have 12 gallons of kerosene socked away, right now.
Crampons are nice, but the next best thing are Yaktrax. http://www.scoutgear.com/shopbybrand-yaktrax.html
Your driveway sounds a lot like mine. My SUV slid off the side last Saturday and I was not able to get a tow truck to it until yeaterday. Our driveway is .7 of a mile long and my “character building” speech is starting to wear thin with my three daughters. I will be attending the recount training in Charlottesville Saturday and look forward to meeting you. We can exchange war stories form the latest storm.
Everyone please bear in mind that this ice storm could shut everything down for days, making it impossible to obtain food or supplies.
Within a matter of a few days or perhaps just hours, the hunger will begin to set in. By then you’ll be down to the most meagre of supplies. Heels of bread, condiments and stale pizza in the back of the fridge from last week. Under the circumstances, I don’t see how people in civilized conditions could possibly feel fit to pass judgement on us.
We must each of us prepare for the final survival option. The eating of human flesh.
Bear in mind that you could find yourself in a position where you would have to walk OVER AN ENTIRE MILE in order to reach civilization. It is times like these that truly test the limits of human endurance. But what we find in the face of such adversity is the great triumph of the human spirit. Man will resort to whatever gruesome acts become necessary in order to survive. Like the fox that gnaws his foot away in order to escape the trap, so shall we turn to our neighbor and feast upon his flesh in order that we might muster the strength to walk half a mile to the 7-11 for help and beer.
And so my friends, I exhort you to steel yourselves for this sickening yet uplifting odyssey through cold, starvation and — ultimately — survival.
Oh, it’s times like these that I thank my creator that I live only a quarter mile from 7-11.
Oh, thank heaven.
Took my advice on moving the site I see ; )
Was it just me or did anyone else read crampon as tampon? I mean for certain people tampons probably are and intelligent investment in an ice storm. Heh.
At least you might get out of going to work for a few days.
Whenever I talk about my hosting setup with people, they express surprise — I figure they must know something I don’t. :) Plus, I spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with server issues that I shouldn’t have to cope with. I don’t want to deal with keeping my Red Hat installation up to date (I’ve done so for many years now; the thrill of a kernel patch is long gone), I don’t want to worry about backups, and I don’t want to have to keep paying for a 3Mbps internet connection just for hosting.
I checked out Dreamhost and TextDrive. TextDrive has been having some real uptime problems for the past few months — their forums are full of people complaining. I don’t want to go down that road, so I settled for Dreamhost. Their schtick is that their only limitations are on transfer and file storage — you can set up all the sites you want within those restrictions. That sounds good to me. I’m moving a couple of my lesser-trafficked sites over there now. If all goes well, I’ll move 90% of my sites there, and retain my existing server as a sandbox.
At least you might get out of going to work for a few days.
I work at home. :P
Dan,
A quarter mile might as well be the grand canyon after a few hours without eating. ANYTHING could happen en route in a survival situation like this. Armed bandits, packs of hungry dogs or simple exhaustion are all likely to prematurely end your journey in tragedy.
A lot of people fail to realize just how many calories the human body requires in order to keep moving in very cold weather. As much as 4,500 per day. You need those calories, Dan. And the only way you’re going to be able to get them is from nutritious, protein-rich human flesh.
I realize that this is a touchy subject that most people don’t want to think about until they find themselves in such a survival situation. But you’ve got to prepare yourself for that contingiency. A sudden snowstorm on the way to the 7-11 could force you to stop halfway and cower in an abandoned car for days. What will you eat? The answer is as plain as the homeless drifter who you invited to sleep on your couch.
As I mentioned earlier it’s not for people in normal life to judge what you find necessary to do in order to muster the strength to get through that 1/4 mile saga – a vertiable Iditarod – towards the 7-11. What is the life of one anonymous transient compared with what you have at stake? What, really, is the significance of a few hours hacking and sawing away at a twitching, half-frozen corpse in the garage? Don’t look at the life that you’re losing, Dan. Look at the life that you’re saving.
There will be times in which you question your very sanity. Even now, as I sit in my warm office with a fully belly, I find myself gazing dully into the spinning white void outside the window. Drawn into the icy wilderness like a moth to the flame. We are survivors, Dan. We will do what we must.
I realize that this is a touchy subject that most people don’t want to think about until they find themselves in such a survival situation.
I think about it all the time. Is that wrong?
lol.
It’s more like a fifth of a mile, really.
But with my 20 percent team member discount from Whole Foods, I was fortunately able to keep my consumption of flesh during this painful ordeal to pigs and cows. Though, I must admit, things got awfully scary during that unending eight seconds I was without power this morning.