Monday, January 31, 2011

going nowhere


We are getting an Arctic blast of winter today and tomorrow, the temperature forecasts keep getting lower and lower.  Wind chills today are supposed to be down in the -30 area and actual temps for the high tomorrow are around zero. 
Today I left for work and it was just below freezing and starting to rain.  Not bad, I thought, I will make it to work before the roads get too bad and by the time I get off the sand trucks should have been out 'fixing' the ice.  Wrong.
I had been driving, on wet streets for about 15 minutes and I noticed that the temps had dropped within minutes to 16 degrees and still heading down.  Over the space of a few minutes the black, wet streets turned grey and then white as the water froze.  It was like being in the special effects segment of a disaster movie.  Unbelievable.  Fortunately traffic slowed to a crawl.  I pulled into a side street and opened my door to see what was going on with the ground.  Solid, smooth ice, too hard to chip with my boot heel.  The roads had been wet just minutes before.  I could push my car sideways with one foot sticking out the door. 
I called work, told them I wasn't coming in, turned around and crawled home.  Traffic moving at about 2mph, everybody freaked out.   I don't think I am going out today.  I would like to go and check on Nina, but it is 17 miles through town.  Unless they just pave the roads with sand this afternoon, I will stay home. 

4 comments:

  1. Yeah, I agree! This sucks... I managed to make it to work, but nearly spun out when I turned my truck off our gravel road onto the main paved road and didn't realize it was ICY. I got to work just on time, 4x4 to the rescue. I've got a chem lab this afternoon at school, and then gotta get home this evening... that's gonna be fun, right at the 5 o'clock rush hour.

    Though, what I'm dreading even more is standing outside tomorrow in possible sub-zero temps holding a horse for the farrier... my fingers and toes are NOT going to be happy.

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  2. Story, that's my worst nightmare, to get caught up in one of those. Did you make it without getting hit by anyone?

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  3. Be careful! I hope the extreme weather gets out if there soon. What a pain :(

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  4. That sounds freakishly horrible!! Glad you got home safe!

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