The snow started falling Friday morning around 10:00, and by the time it was over on Saturday afternoon we had 20.5 inches of snow on the ground, 15.5 of those falling over night Saturday.
Both of those totals are records for Columbus. The last time that much snow fell on one day was in 1910.
The talking weather heads here are calling it the “Blizzard of ’08” or ‘The Storm of the Century” The wind was never fast enough or sustained enough to make it an official blizzard, and the century is only 7 years old, but I can forgive a little weather hyperbole this time I guess. The coverage during the storm was bad enough. One local reporter with no yard stick or ruler handy, resorted to using the following items to illustrate the depth of the snow:
- A 22” baguette from Panera Bread
- 2 sacks of White Castle sliders
- 4 Starbucks Venti coffee cups stacked on top of each other.
It’s unusual for Columbus to be ground zero for a storm like this. Normally, it’s Cleveland that gets it the worst due to the lake effect snow off of Lake Erie, but this time, all of the elements of a perfect storm converged right over central Ohio.
I left work on Friday night thinking that I’d have the whole weekend to get the snow cleared away, since I didn’t have to be back to work until Tuesday morning. What I wasn’t counting on was my co-workers calling off because of the snow on Saturday morning. My phone rang the first time at 4:30 am. I was not a happy bear. One of the day shift nurses had called off and I was being asked to come in to work on what was possibly the worst weather morning of the past decade. Now, I have dragged my ass in there in all kinds of weather, and in various degrees of illness, but this was not one morning that I was going to attempt to go in. My little red Focus would have made it 5 feet down my driveway and been buried up to the wheel wells. Even if I HAD agreed to go in, I never would have made it there. (And the nurse that called off drives a 4 wheel drive vehicle and lives closer to work that I do.. go figure...)
Every health care worker knows, you give up your right to a snow day when you choose this profession. You don’t get to stay home just because the roads are nearly impassable or because they might become impassable later. Every year the administration here has to remind people of that fact. Kind of gets old after a while.
Steve and I waited until Sunday morning after the snow had stopped to clear the driveway, and no sooner had we finished than the phone rang. Work again. This time, I had no excuse, and ended up covering a shift for someone that lived in an area that WAS truly impassable.
Today, it’s 40 degrees here and the world around us is starting to melt. The temperatures are supposed to be above freezing from here on out, and this record snowfall will be water under the bridge by the end of this week. Now we just have to worry about flooding.
Here are a few pictures of the snow:
Our House on Saturday Morning
The backyard, as seen from the office. Dakota was not amused by the 3 foot snowdrifts in his yard.
Steve and Dakota
Snow and ice sliding off of the metal roof at work. It looked like the building had grown fangs.