by A J Newman
“Callie spoke up, “Dad, remember I told you that the wooly worms have real thick black coats as winter started. They know this is going to be a bad winter. I’m okay with winter as long as Paul, and I have a warm fire to snuggle up in front of.”
Ally replied, “I second that thought, but I worry about the animals during a blizzard. There are a lot of house dogs and cats that have been turned loose when their human parents died or couldn’t feed them.”
Sally added, “That reminds me, we need to be very careful and watch for wild and domestic animals that are starving. Remember the wolf attack back home. We could have lost some friends.”
I hadn’t worried about that because with most humans dead the wild game had flourished. People were hunting, but there was a hell of a lot less of them hunting or ruining the animal’s habitat. Hell, you can sit on your back porch and see hundreds of rabbits, squirrels, skunks and even a porcupine or two any day of the week. Dogs and cats were plentiful. You can hear Coyotes yelping all night. Nature was in a rebalancing period, the strong would survive, and the weak would be eaten.
Susie came running into the family room and yelled, “It’s snowing! It’s snowing real hard, and the wind is blowing.”
A gust of wind rattled the storm windows as if to punctuate Susie’s words. The wind picked up in velocity; we could hear it howling, and one of the side doors had a whistle.
We all ran to the windows and saw nothing but a white mass of snow hitting the window. I shined my flashlight out the front window, and the beam stopped a few feet into the whiteout.
I looked at my guests and said, “Y’all should spend the night here. I think it may be too dangerous to walk home in this whiteout.
“Dad, we only live next door, and I hate to leave my dog home alone. This storm is probably scaring him to death.”
“Zack, we live on the other side of Callie, so I’m sure we can make it home.”
“Okay, but I offered. Key your mike twice when you are home safely, and Mike, key yours three times.”
“Yes, dad,” both Mike and Callie replied.”
I woke up in the middle of the night and heard the wind fiercely blowing. I got out of bed without waking Ally and went to the living room to look out the window. It was 3:21 am, and the snow was still coming down so fast I couldn’t see, but a few inches beyond the window. I was wide awake, so I made me a biscuit and deer steak sandwich. I sat at the front window watching the snow rain down. I don’t know why it fascinated me so much because this was like watching a TV without a signal. Nothing on the screen to see, but I couldn’t stop watching.
Before I knew it, it was 6:00; I started a pot of coffee and fetched some eggs and deer sausage for breakfast. I wasn’t much of a cook, but scrambled eggs and sausage were not much of a challenge. The smell of the coffee floated throughout the house and Susie joined me after making herself a cup of coffee.
“Dad, what are you cooking? It smells great and is making me hungry.”
“Scrambled eggs and some sausage from your deer.”
“That sounds great and boy I am hungry.”
I looked down beside her and saw her Winchester leaning against the counter beside my AR. I had mixed emotions seeing that this little teen girl had been trained to keep her rifle handy at all times. I was proud but saddened that our world had come to this. It was no different from the early settlers always prepared for an Indian attack.
Ally came down the hall wearing only one of my long sleeve t-shirts looking beautiful taking my mind off my cooking.
Before she saw Susie, she said, “Zack, come on back to bed and we can ... Oh, hi, Susie. You’re up early this morning.”
“Yes mom, the coffee smelled so good that I had to have a cup with dad.”
“Well since you’re up, please let the dog out to do his business.”
“Okay, mom.”
Susie looked down at her black Lab and called for him to follow her. She opened the kitchen door, the wind blew it out of her hand, and it slammed against the counter. Snow swirled into the kitchen until I ran over and forced the door closed.
Susie said, “Holy crap. The wind almost knocked me down.”
“Susie, don’t say that word.”
“Mom you say the “S” word all the time.”
“I’m an adult. You’re not. Do what I say.”
“Yes, mam.”
I interjected, “Ally, please finish breakfast while I clear a path for the dog.”
While they were discussing the finer points of children not cussing, I got dressed and put a heavy coat, gloves and ski mask on. I struggled to open the door just enough to see what was happening outside. The snow was three feet deep against the house and door. I went out into the garage and found a snow shovel to clear a path for the poor dog. I had Ally and Susie close the door behind me. The snow was only a foot and a half deep but had drifted against the house. The sun was up, but it was twilight outside, and I could only see a few feet in front of me
I cleared a small 10 x 10-foot area for the dog to do his business and came back in for breakfast. I was just in time to sit down and eat. The meal hit the spot after shoveling the wet, heavy snow.
“Darling, we’ll have to keep an area clear for the dog, and I think I’ll clear a path over to Callie’s home before I sit my ass in front of the fire and read a good book.”
“That sounds like a great idea. How many shovels do we have?”
“Just the one. We’ll have to take turns. I hope each house has a shovel. If this crap continues, we’ll need to all work to keep our paths open.”
“Mom, dad said crap.”
“He’s also an adult. Cut out the back talk, or you will be sitting in a corner.”
“Before I was interrupted I was going to say that I’ll go check some of the abandoned houses for more shovels while you and Susie shovel.”
“Sounds like a plan. Please check on Callie and Paul while you’re out.”
“I planned to drop in on them while I was out.”
I put my winter duds back on and braved the blizzard once more to walk next door to Callie’s home. I knew the house was straight ahead, but couldn’t see it until I was about five feet away. I knocked on the kitchen door, and no one answered. I waited and knocked louder. I saw Paul through the window hopping along putting his pants on.
The door opened letting a bunch of snow and me in on their kitchen floor.
“What are y’all doing sleeping in this late? Morning is half over. We’re burning daylight.
I heard Callie behind me, “Dad, some people like to stay in bed and do adult stuff in the morning when it’s too crappy outside.”
“Baby girl, we’re spending the morning cleaning a place so Susie’s dog can take a crap while Ally tries to teach Susie not to say the word crap while discussing this crappy weather. That’s what adults do in our house on a crap weather day. I’m now officially done talking about crap.”
Laughing Callie replied, “Poor daddy. Is it okay if we invite Susie to a slumber party at my house so Ally and you can behave like adults once in a while?”
“Yes, if you take her dog too.”
“Poor dad.”
“Hey, now seriously, there is 18 inches of snow on the ground and three-foot drifts. You need to clear an area for your dog to do his business and we are making a path from our house to yours. I would like you to make a path over to Mike’s house and so on until we are all linked up. This storm is not going away for another day or so, and I don’t want to be digging three feet of snow. Let’s stay caught up with it as it falls.”
Paul answered, “That sounds like a great idea. We have a snow shovel, and I’ll bet some of the abandoned homes also have one.”
“I’m going to look in a few, and I’ll bring you an extra one back here shortly. I’m dropping by the rest of our big family to spread our plan and check on them.”
“Okay, we’ll have breakfast and get to shoveling snow right after breakfast.”
“I’ll be back in
an hour or so.”
Damn, I arrived at Mike’s place, and they were still in bed. My friends were getting lazy and blaming the snow storm. Sally finally answered the door and let a ton of snow and me into their house.
“Damn Zack, you’re messing up my clean kitchen floor.”
“Well, it’s about to get worse. It’s snowed all night and is still snowing.”
I filled them in on our plan and divided the rest of our group with Mike to visit. We would both search a few houses for snow shovels. I visited Jacob and Sam’s homes while Mike took care of the rest.
I found three more snow shovels and a lawn tractor with a plow blade attachment and then drove it back home plowing a path as I went. The tractor’s blade was just a bit shorter than the snow was deep and didn’t do a great job with just one pass. I drove it past Mike and Callie’s homes to help them with their paths. It worked much better clearing the already cleared paths. I was happy until I realized that four inches of snow had fallen in the last 90 minutes.
The tractor made short work of clearing a much larger area for the dog, and I ran it up and down the path between Callie’s and our house. I was plowing away when I heard a noise behind me. I turned and saw Mike riding a big Cub Cadet with a snow blower attachment on the front. It was throwing the snow ten feet into the air. This was much better than trying to shove snow out of the way.
“Hey Zack, look what I found in the pole barn behind Roger’s place. The metal barn must have shielded it from the EMP blast. I’m going to start plowing the paths between all of the houses and then try to clear the streets if you and Paul will help. The others have already volunteered; we’ll all take turns and make the job easier. Paul is firing up the tractor with the bucket and blade to help with the streets.”
Okay, I’ll admit it that we were bored and playing with the tractor and snow blower; they were just what the doctor ordered to get us out in the snow. The first day was fun. The next day wasn’t too bad, but the third day was work. Everyone was taking turns, including the women, but we barely stayed caught up.
Mother Nature unloaded this blizzard on us two weeks after we moved to Rolling Hills. This was made much crueler because one day we were walking outside in shirt sleeves and the next had two feet of snow and 29-degree weather. It snowed for a week piling the snow up higher than most of our houses. We had no warning as we had in the days before the lights went out. There were no three days of warning that a bad storm was on its way and no one told us to go to the store and buy all of the milk and bread you can get. This was a total surprise.
Thank God, Ally had selected a two story house for us to live in that had two fireplaces and a nice basement. By the fourth day of the storm, we couldn’t see out of any of the downstairs windows. The snow was actually about five feet deep and climbing, but drifts were as high as 12 feet against buildings and fences. We had to go upstairs to look outside, not that we could see anything with the blizzard still pounding us with more snow every minute. Hell even I was praying for global warming each night.
***
On the morning of the fourth day of the storm, Mike woke up at what was supposed to be daylight, checked the time and rolled out of bed.
“Mike, it’s not even daylight yet. Come back to bed.”
“Hon, it’s 7:30 and there ain’t a bit of sun out there. I’m going to get dressed and get some plowing done before breakfast. I’ll be back in an hour and a half.”
Mike fueled up the snow blower, but before he took it out of the garage heard the tractor fire up and move out onto the street. Mike pulled the door open with the pull cord and wished the automatic garage door opener worked. This was a sixteen-foot door, and the bitch was heavy. He drove the Cub Cadet out onto the driveway and was shocked to see another foot of snow covering everything he had worked so hard to plow the day before. He started the snow blower up and cleared the driveway. He waved at Paul who was scraping the road in front of their houses. He saw Paul stop and use the bucket to collect and dump the mound of snow up over the snow wall and onto the top of the now six feet of snow.
Mike then headed to the back yard to clear the dog’s area and the path between the houses. He headed on down to Callie’s house then my house where he stopped and banged on the door.
“Zack roll off your hussy and get your ass out here.”
Ally poked her head out the door and replied, “Mike, shut up. Zack rolled off his beautiful wife two hours ago and is helping Sam clear snow away from his garage door. And be careful with that hussy crap.”
“See you later, beautiful.”
“That’s better. Now go play in the street.”
Mike finished at my house and went back to his to get a tape measure. He measured the wall of snow that surrounded our paths and found the average height of the walls to be six feet three inches.
I saw Mike making the measurements and said, “You checking to see if it’s a record snow fall?”
“No. The snow blower can only blow the snow about ten feet in the air and at that height, a quarter of the snow falls back on the path being cleared. This snow has to stop before we can’t clear it anymore.”
“I know, I was talking with Paul, and he reminded me that the bucket on the tractor can only dump snow about nine to ten feet out of our cleared paths before the bucket is so high that the snow juts falls back on the path. I’m worried.”
Mike looked at his watch and said, “Breakfast time. You can have the snow blower for the next 40 minutes.”
***
That was the worst winter North America had experienced since the last Ice Age. We were bored one day and terrified the next. Cabin fever abounded, and we just had to suck it up and work hard to survive. There probably was too much snuggling by the fire that winter because we had several new additions to our clan nine months later.
Chapter 12 - Terror in the Ice
On the morning of the fifth day of the winter blizzard, I woke up with a bright light in my eyes and Susie yelling, “Mom, Dad, the sun is shining. The snow has stopped.”
I raced to the window and looked down on the top of the snow and then at the sun. The snow reflected the light like a mirror and nearly blinded me, but it was great to see across the snow to the buried houses.
I could see the bucket of the tractor scooping snow and piling it on top of the frozen white walls, which defined the path in front of Paul’s house.
Ally was stretching and yawning as Susie said, “It looks warm outside. I’ll bet the snow melts and is gone in a couple of days.”
I performed a mental calculation that I remembered from listening to the local Channel 44 weather lady. Ten inches of snow equals one inch of water, so our seven feet of snow equals 8.4 inches of water with no place to go except through our manmade paths. The water will be channeled directly into our homes.
“Oh shit! Son of a Bitch!”
“Dad is cussing.”
“Damn Skippy I’m cussing. Ally, where is the water going to go if we have a quick melt off?”
There was a moment of silence then, “Oh crap!”
“You said crap.”
“We need to get the clan together, now!”
“Susie, get your coat on and run down to Roger’s house and ask him to bring everyone past his house here, right now! I’ll get the rest.”
I quickly dressed and ran down to the other houses to get everyone to the meeting. I noticed that it was actually colder this morning than it had been during the last week, so maybe, just maybe, we had some time to develop a course of action to resolve our water problem.
I finished knocking on doors, ran back to the house and only busting my ass twice on the ice.
I walked into the kitchen, saw Callie and Paul and said, “Ally start a big pot of coffee and please fry up some sausage. Most of our guests haven’t had breakfast.”
I guess our Bug Out drills had helped instill a major sense of urgency in our little clan because everyone was in our family room within fifteen minutes of notifica
tion.
“I know you want to know what is so urgent this sunny cold morning, so I’ll get right to the point. The sun is out. The weather has to warm up. The snow is going to melt.”
I stopped and let the words sink in for a moment before the realization sank in on my friends.
“Oh shit.”
“Boy, are we screwed.”
“Water wings.”
“Noah’s ark?”
“Yes my friends, we have made a mile long swimming pool that will funnel all of that melting snow into our streets and paths that will have nowhere to go except into our houses. We need to brainstorm a solution before the temperature rises.”
Paul asked, “Where is the low end of our neighborhood.”
“It’s the south-east end of the subdivision. The entire neighborhood slants downhill in that direction.”
I thought for a second, realized that our home was the furthest southeast and said, “Oh shit! This is more serious than I thought. Your water is heading down to our house.”
Callie asked, “Dad, aren’t there storm drains and underground pipes to take rain water away?”
“Normally, yes, but not in a country subdivision like this. We have several dry storm water ponds that fill up during a storm. They hold the excess water and then slowly release it into creeks and the lake about half a mile south of here. Our problem is that the stormwater ponds have seven feet of snow in them and won’t take much water.”
“What if we take the snowblower and tractor and make several paths down to the creeks where the storm water normally flows?”
I replied, “The snow blower won’t work because the snow is seven feet deep, and heavily compacted. We will have to use the bucket on the tractor, and that will be a lot of work.”
Paul added, “We could also build some snow dams to divert the water around the houses at this end of the subdivision.”
I patted Paul on the back and said, “That’s my boy. You get a gold star for that one. I believe we have a few days before the snow begins a rapid melting, but once it does, it will refreeze overnight and become impossible to remove.”
