Those in snowstorm/no electricity, check in PLEASE!!!

[dreamer]

OK now I will admit the TRUTH, LOL
My car HAD all that stuff in it, I had recently refreshed everything in there when me and lil guy made our prethanksgiving trip to RMH so far away...."just in case" and yes, then that huge storm hit.
It was great- we were prepared.

and last week when that storm hit and we were again out at RMH and all....me and son reached for our emergency supplies........and..........EVERYTHING was GONE!

husband had gotten this brilliant idea Sun Dec 24 nite to get my car detailed? (yeah right, I do not think he knew how much it would cost, and did not realize hey it was Sun NITE AND Christmas eve)
SO--------unbeknownst to me- he had emptied EVERYTHING out of my car, including my maps and laundry/vending machine quarters and EVERYTHING.
So there me and son were, needing those things-------and they were NOT there. Not even the snow brush escaped DHs clearing out my car!!!!!!!

<sigh> LOL - it figures.

 

[DammitJanet]

Ok let me try posting again! I attempted to post last nite and got violently ill...lmao.

We went under a "severe winter weather alert" on wednesday nite. They said it "might" get cold enough for the rain they were calling for to "maybe" turn to sleet...maybe. If it did it would definitely be mixed with rain. It wouldnt start until early morning hours. What did our brilliant officials do? They started calling off schools the night before! Even with the weather guys saying how roads shouldnt be a problem because we have had such warm temps that the ground was warm enough nothing should stick.

Ok...so we close down for "mights and maybes" and we got nothing but cold rain!

 

[dreamer]

gosh here they do not close down for ANYTHING.
a couple eas ago they got criticized here for not calling off school more often during major snow-ice storms due to so many bus accidents during them.

 

[Hound dog]

Janet

I hate rain. But I'm glad you didn't get the storm. We supposedly have one going to hit sunday. We'll see.

Dreamer

I think you had a very creative and thoughtful gift!. Honestly, I'd love to get something like that. Ever think of marketing it? Probably would sell well, I'd think. I know I'd buy one.

I grew up in central Illinois. You had to have at least 6 inches of snow, and the snow plows not to have made it out before school was closed. Here where I live now in southern Ohio it's rural and people live in the hills, too. School can be called for the slightest of reasons. If the bus drivers don't think they can make it safely through those awful hill roads and country roads there is no school. A few years back between snow and ice the kids missed so much school they lost spring break and still went an extra 2 weeks in June to make up for it.

Still, I'd rather have the snow. I am so sick of the rain this season. I keep wondering if I should build an ark. :hammer:

*

 

[donna723]

Our schools here close too at the very first signs of snow or ice. And they stay closed until the last tiny bit is melted off of the most remote of the back roads in the boonies! It was extremely frustrating when my kids were in school and too young to stay home by themselves. "One of us" had to stay home from work ... and of course it was always ME! But I understand why they do it too. Our roads here are all hills and curves and not safe for the buses in bad weather. And some buses made a "double route" and it takes a very long time to get all the kids home if they are already in school when the bad weather starts.

:smile:

We have a "possibility" of some bad weather Sunday, they say. They started spraying the roads with that "stuff" YESTERDAY! So by Sunday, it won't be much good, especially if it rains first like it's supposed to and washes it all away. I look forward to the occasional "snow day" as a free day off work, guilt free! I have a strict policy that if it's snowing or there's ice on the roads, I ain't goin' nowhere! I'll be home on the couch watching "Oprah"! I figure I have only ONE car and only ONE b*typical teen, and I'm not willing to risk either one of them to drive 30-something miles in to work (and then end up being one of the few that made it in!!!!)

 

[dreamer]

when I worked at the county nursing home, here in my rural county----if we called in t work and blamed weather- they sent a snowmobile to get us. if we said our car slid off the road, we had to bring a tow reciept, if we said we were sick during severe weather we had to bring a docs note. if we said we had no sitter, they had us bring our kids and leave them in the day room. if we were on duty when bad weather came, they set us up in break room and rehab room and we had to stay overnite to make sure they always had enough staff on duty. when they made us stay that way they fed us, but we did not get full pay unless we were on the floor working.....
BUT we have LOTS of plows here and LOTS of salt trucks and even a foot of snow is not a big deal, really. The ice can be bad and the worst is on the open roads by the corn fields etc....cuz they get drifted under as the wind blows across....but- if you od slideoff the road, there really is nothing in the way that you will hit. - unless it is another car out on the road. and usually if it is icey the cars hit in a different way than when the ground is dry.

 

[donna723]

Dreamer - I work for the state in a prison and have plenty of leave time I can use so I just call and tell them not to bother looking for me. They leave it up to our judgement on whether we can make it in or not. The back country roads don't scare me as much as the little 5-mile stretch of the interstate that I have to get down, with the big semis flying by. Our security people though, the ones who work in the housing units where the inmates live, will be held over if the next shift cannot get in. There's been times that some of them were there for three days without going home. We're out in the country and some of those hills are just impossible to get up or down without sliding off into a ditch or down in a gully.

Before she went to nursing school, my daughter worked as a CNA in a nursing home and they were the same way. We lived way out in the country then. Fortunately the nursing home administrator was one of our neighbors and he had a huge 4-wheel drive truck that could get through almost anything and he would pick my daughter up and take her to work. I always worried but they always made it in safely. Right by our house was some huge hills and sharp curves and those shady spots stayed slick with ice long after it had melted off everywhere else. Every winter there was so many wrecks right by my house, I kept the Sheriffs office and wrecker service numbers on my speed dial! On that road, if you slide one way you plow into a rock wall that is the side of a huge hill a few feet off the road. If you slide the other way, you find yourself plunging down into a steep gully, unless you hit a convenient tree on the your way down and that generally stops you! No thank you, I'll be home on the couch!

 

[dreamer]

YIKES about the rock wall!
Nah we just have mostly cornfields and cow farms. No big ditches.
We were not permitted vacation time from Nov to Jan and no personal days unless arranged a month in advance, our schedule was done amonth ahead and we had freedom to schedule ourselves first come first served pretty much how we wanted. Blank schedule was posted in a room, a month ahead with slots for us all to fill in when we would work and when we wouldn't.....but it was first come first served. So really their strictness about personal days etc was really only a huge issue when you could not get notice of events in time. (It was a big problem with school events, cuz our school loved to notify parents last minute of things and our nursing home employed a huge number of people with kids in the district)
Cuz we could schedule ourself "off" or change or shift if we wanted.....negating the need for personal days in the bosses mind.

 

[donna723]

See, here, if there is a hill in the way and they want to build a road, they just cut right through the hill. So lots of places have a tall rock bluff on both sides of the road! You have the line on the side of the road, a ditch, then a rock bluff! You could almost stick your hand out the window and touch it! And if there's not a ditch there already, they'll MAKE a ditch ... I guess so you have something to slide into if the road is iced up. And the roads that go up the side of a hill ... they will have a steep rock bluff on one side and a big drop-off on the other side. Only the very worst of the curves and drop-offs have guard rails installed. Most of them don't. And lots of the drop-offs are so steep, if a car DOES go off the road and down the slope, you can't even SEE it! Nope, I will be home on the couch watching the snow though my windows in my nice, warm living room!