The Snowpocalypse hit us again yesterday with the second serious Nor'easter in a week, with another on the way on Monday. We had done well in the Bomb-Cyclone of last weekend and had no flooding. But this one got us!
Last night we were all laughing a bit when all the schools closed for today and there wasn't any snow on the ground - the TV weather people all standing in town swearing that our town was at the rain-snow line and it was gonna get bad. The kids had been sent home early from school, I did the traditional run-to-clear-the-store-shelves thing, and we were hunkered down. And then it just drizzled. We were so confident that we ate the fresh bread that was supposed to be the emergency peanut butter-sandwich meal. Then it hit. Yea. It did overnight. We woke up to almost nine inches of really heavy snow and trees everywhere snapped in half.
It was all looking good - we had missed out on the agony - we got plowed out and had a snow day with our huge robot push going on to get ready for our super regional on Thursday. We had power. Kids were pouring in.
And Mr. Mayhem visited...
At 9 am it went to hell. The trucks were outside looking like they were taking care of a line down on our next door neighbors house (robot kid) and the power all of a sudden went off. The power company made the choice of cutting the power to the grid of 200 houses instead of cutting the line to her house to make it dead (it was in the road). Yes, 200 houses!
So I went off to another robot house with power to charge cell phones, computers, robot batteries and controls. While I was there - I got a text from my husband telling me he had lacerated his face.
WHAT???
So he walked into the garage door that was opening really slowly (backup battery) while carefully looking at the ice he was walking on. Sent me a pic of his face and it was a detour to meet him at the urgent care to glue up his nose while the robot kids were sitting in the dark waiting for me with their batteries.
So while they are operating on my husband's face - I get a call from our neighbor - the power company informed her that she had to get her own electrician, have them reconnect the downed line to her house, move the tree, then call the town inspector, and get them to inspect. Then the inspector would enter the PIN number into the power company system and our neighborhood would be put in line with the rest of the 475,000 people needing restoration of power. OMG.
That process starts tomorrow at 7am with the electrician (hopefully). They tell us to expect days. UGH. So I abandoned the hubby with the doctor and started looking for a hotel with the lovely and bored urgent care receptionist. She called out phone numbers and I found hotel after hotel without power or full. Finally one that could take us tonight but full the rest of the weekend. UGH.
Run home with Mr. Glue Face and the robot kids are ready to beat the robot with a hammer as they are so frustrated and in the dark. The control system fried with some short. Ok Fed-Ex, you are my friend and I call to order a new one. I think Mr. Mayhem had gone into overdrive! So they are told to load the robot and fix-it stuff in our truck to take it to the hotel. We also take the load of clothes from the washer. Seems one kid had loaded all his clothes into it before the outage. They are wet and there is nothing to wear (of course).
At this point we realize with our neighbor that we are the only ones of the 200 homes that know what is up and we have retirees, handicapped neighbors, people with new babies, wheelchairs, etc just in our little corner so we go out and go door-to-door to spread the bad news that we will all be out for a few days - and they come out and start spreading the word too.
Our street is a major pass through and some idiots start moving the cones to try to drive past them to go through. So she and I got the bright idea of drawing the tree back into the street to block it. The dead power line was down and it was getting dark and any SUV that did that would get caught in it and if they were lucky - it would snap and keep us from fixing it. If they were unlucky, they would pull down the pole and kill themselves. So it must have looked hilarious to the Comcast truck that pulled up - watching two middle-aged women drag a huge tree back into the street. But he could see the issue, leaned out his window and said 'that was so smart - you just saved someone's life'.
So tomorrow we load up the robot field and stuff and truck off to another team kid's basement to work all weekend. They have offered showers too. Think we will sleep in the cold house - doesn't look too good on the hotel front.
They have called school again for tomorrow in town and will open our high school as a shelter. The robot team hip-hip-horayed for that as our 3-D printer is dead - minutes before they were going to print the part needed for this weekend's work. We will pull in a chit with the town team at the school and get it printed there!
But in the most twilight zone move, my youngest's school called at 8pm and REVERSED their earlier snow day call of 5pm. Yea. Never heard of that ever. I am not getting up early (we are several towns away) and getting him to school where they had 20 inches of snow. Just for the half day before Spring Break. Yea. No. Not happening.
SOOOOO... if you don't get questions answered, orders out, etc. for a few days. Ya know why. It's the Robot-Zombie-Snowzilla event around here keeping me from it.
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