Snowstorm Pax packed a punch but didn't knock us out

We received snow, ice, freezing rain, sleet, wind, and more during the Pax storm of February 11-13. I laid in my supplies, which were milk and bread naturally, I made soup and muffins, drew water, readied the weather radio with batteries and got out the hurricane lantern.

And joy of joys, the power stayed on! I only had a two or three minute interruption and then it popped back on. I think some of that was because we didn't get the predicted ice they said we would, but they did say we were on the edge of the snow v. ice line so it could have gone either way. I'm glad it went this way! A quarter of a million people in Georgia lost power, the greatest amount of all the southern states affected by Pax. So...

And the other reason, I am convinced, is that people heeded directions and stayed off the roads. No one was crashing around into poles and transformers. As of yesterday afternoon at the height of the storm that had been going for 20 hours, Athens police had only responded to ONE road call for crash. Yay, people!

Here is a photo I love, posted at the height of the storm, by Madison County Sheriff on his Facebook page:

Icicles on my front porch had already started to melt at sunup

The neighbor's smoker looks like a hunched R2D2 trying to walk in the snow

I need to buy more bird seed.

 

 The candles were ready but the power stayed ON! Yay!

There is a lot of extreme weather this week. The news reported that Slovenia is "entombed" in ice. Their word, entombed. And since the nation is paralyzed and not moving then entombed seems like an apt description. Look at some of these pics:

Guy tries to figure out how to unearth his car and make it usable again.

The trains aren't going to run for at least two more weeks, they say.

Many people are attributing this extreme weather to global warming. Even my cats are worried about it. [Not]

Madison County Sheriff wrote,

"Road conditions are beginning to improve. We would still like everyone to stay put and let the snow crews catch up. Things should be much better by this afternoon. Thank you all for heeding the warnings and staying at home, it helped tremendously!!!"

It's official. I have to stay at home. Aw shucks, what a hardship. [Not]

Till next time!!