Storm Watch: DC 2010

The past 24 hours has been the biggest snow fall DC has seen in almost a century.

However, after having lived in Japan where a foot or two or three over night was normal in the winter, I wasn't too nervous about the amount of snowfall we were about to get, but I was nervous about the electricity going out or being stuck with no where to go for days on end.

The whole area was in an uproar for a week prior to the first snow fall. They kept changing the amount of snow fall first it was supposed to be 18-24 inches, then 20-30 inches and in the end it was over 30 inches by our house in Maryland. The whole area acted as if it were the end of the world, the grocery stores were sold out of shovels, out of water, out of milk. out of salt. The lines at the grocery stores were over an hour long! It was insane.

Most of the school is in the area shut down in Maryland and Virginia. Unfortunately for me, we go by the DC Federal closures and since Obama complained that DC closes to easily due to snow, we rarely close. So the day the storm was supposed arrive, I still had to get up and go to work. (Why is it that snow days always come on Weekends?) I got to work and they said that we were closing at2:00pm when the snow was supposed to get and start to get heavy according to the news. We only had 16 students with 4 teachers, not the most challenging of days. It was snowing when I left work but not sticking. I took the metro from DuPont Circle to Grosvernor by my house, only about a 20 minute metro ride and when we popped out on top of the ground the snow was sticking and making the roads and sidewalks slippery. I got home just in time! Exhausted from the busy week, I feel asleep for about 3 hours and when I woke up there was already about 3-6 inches on the ground. I watched the news for the next hour or so and looked out the window to see that people were already starting to shovel. Out of fear that Id get snowed in and because I was the only person in the house that was home I decided to shovel the little that had snowed.

Difficult to do when you don't have a shovel.

So, I improvised.

I used a dust pan and broom. The broom got most of the fresh powdery stuff on top and the dust pan worked as a mini shovel. Didn't take long to get the 6 inches down to concrete. Then I went to sleep.... and boy did I sleep well!

I woke up to over two feet of snow on the ground with the snow fall still coming down! Went to shovel the snow and couldn't open the front door because the snow as piled so high. So I pushed the door open just enough and started scooping snow with the dustpan...I got the top part of the stairs done and decided that at least the door could open. I was exhausted. Shoveling, especially with a small dustpan in two feet of snow.

I waited until the afternoon to finish shoveling, by then there was another 6 inches of snow or so on the ground where I had already dust panned. I finally got a path clear an the snow was letting up. There were tons of people shoveling out side. Shoveling their cars, their stairs, the sidewalk. It was the most I had ever seen my neighbors out and about. They were talking and helping each other and sharing shovels and styles. Its strange how extreme conditions bring people together.

The worst to happen out of this storm was a few old buildings collapsing but no injuries. Just another day in the life of Monica...another storm. I always tell my mom " I don't find snow, the snow comes looking for me".