I am writing this post from a hotel room in Addison (a suburb of Dallas) on Friday night, as our family has temporarily relocated here since our home has been without electic power today. We lost power sometime during the middle of the night laswt night and when we awoke this morning is was a frigid 55 degrees inside the house. The temperature had decreased to 50 degrees by the middle of the afternoon. Needless to say, it was too chilly to be in the house for long so we are glad to be warm and safe in the hotel.
It all started off innocently enough on Thursday morning with a dusting of snow. Tthe kids were so excited about the snow while we were eating breakfast that morning. Below are a few photos of the beginning.
And then the snow continued to fall all day Thursday, from about 7:00 a.m. until past 10:30 p.m. when I went to bed. We had big, fluffy white flakes combined with smaller rapidly-falling snow, and it continued all day long. At morning school drop off all was normal, but by noon the school discticts were phoning parents to notify them of early pick-ups due to the weather.I teach two classes on Thursdays from 12:30 until 3:30 and I went ahead with my scheduled teaching, knowing that I could still pick up John and Amelia early after leaving the classroom. Some students in my 12:30 class even brought me a snowman! He was about a foot high and resided on a tray borrowed from the cafeteria. I thought this was clever.
By Thursday evening John's school had cancelled for Friday but Amelia's school was projecting a two-hour delay on opening. I don't think anyone expected it to get worse Thursday evening but it certainly did, as the snow continued to fall heavier than expected and by Friday morning there was probably 8 inches of accumulation. We lost power sometime in the middle of the night, so John ate his breakfast by candlelight Friday morning. It's hard to tell from the photo because the flash made it bright, but he looked like he was conducting a religious ritual with all of the candles surrounding him!
Here are a few pictures of the heavy wet snow Friday morning. The most striking sight for me was seeing the inches of heavy wet snow on the tree branches. We now know that downed tree limbs has been a big side-effect of this storm. We were lucky in that we only had smaller branches fall, but we have heard reports of at least one house fire in our area caused by large tree limbs sparking power lines and then falling on the roof of a house. I have seen several streets blocked off by police because it is too dangerous to pass with the broken limbs.
And here are the kids all packed up and ready to go out Friday. Scott shoveled the sidewalk for us. Who would have thought the snow shovel we moved from North Carolina would be used in Texas?!? Amelia's school district finally decided to close that morning so the kids and I were prepared forsnow day together. It was obvious we couldn't stay long in the house so my first thought was to take them to Barnes and Noble where I could get coffee and they could read books and we could all be warm. But after trying two bookstores and finding them both closed and after seeing many businesses without power, I decided to head to my office at SMU. Even though the university was closed for the day I knew the buildings would have power and I was eager to check the news and see what was going on. I felt really helpless at home on Friday morning without access to news or communication about what was going on. The kids packed toys and activities in their backpacks to keep themselves amused in my office. After driving by three Starbucks that were open I found one that didn't have a line out the door so we were able to get coffee and hot chocolate. Luckily the roads were not icy - only slushy - so getting around was not an issue.
We stayed at SMU for a couple of hours and then I took the kids to the cafeteria for lunch. Amelia always thinks this is a special treat - pizza bar! ice cream machine! - because you can have pretty much anything you want to eat. Then we stayed in the office a bit longer before deciding to book the hotel for the night. We went back home and packed up and were warm in the hotel by late afternoon. Luckily Scott was still at his office and had access to the computer to book a hotel room, which was hard to find given the hundreds of thousands of homes without power and the fact that the NBA All-Star game and events were in Dallas this weekend. The kids enjoyed swimming in the indoor heated pool and being there felt more like a fun adventure for our family rather than a hardship.
Update: Power was restored to our home sometime Friday night so we were able to return home Saturday. The snow is partially melted and in its place are giant areas of sloshy black mud - gross. But we are very glad to be home and to have the rest of the weekend to recover.
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