Living in the greater Chicagoland area, we were hit by Snowpocalypse 2011 on Tuesday night/Wednesday. The official total for O'Hare airport, which is only a few miles away, was 20.2 inches. Due to all of the strong winds, accumulation on our driveway alone ranged from a couple inches to about chest high.
That's my car there, the drift next to it completely covered our garbage cans. The shallowest snow bank was directly in front of the car. The tallest was just past that. Between the garage in the far back and the tall drift in front of the car everything was 2-3 feet deep. All the stuff the plows pushed up on our driveway made the snow about 2.5-3 feet deep at the end of the driveway.
I managed to cut a single path from the garage to the street, clear a single path on the sidewalks, and start to clean out behind my car when the snowblower broke. From that point, it was shovel or be stranded. It took about 3 hours after the snowblower broke for us to clear just enough room to get the cars out onto the street.
While I was throwing shovelful after shovelful of snow over increasingly large piles, I had some thoughts about other methods of snow removal. Let me share them with you.
1. Pour out the rest of the gas for the broken snowblower, light a match and walk away. Possibly effective in the short term, but it wouldn't cover much area.
2. Take my father-in-laws space heater out of his room, plug it in, and set it on one of the drifts. His space heater isn't one of the ones that rattles and blows hot air and will cause a fire if you look at it wrong. His is one that's more like a radiator and creates ambient heat. While this might be somewhat effective, I didn't want to short out the heater, and wouldn't have had enough time for it to melt all the snow.
3. Dig out our little fire pit thingie, start a fire next to a snow drift, and move it around as the drift melted. The two big problems with this right off the bat would be digging out the fire pit and then digging out dry wood (if we have any at this point).
4. Body heat. When I got tired, I just sat down in the snow. While this was kind of comfortable, I was too bundled up for my heat to get through, and I was just compacting the snow instead of melting it.
Anybody have any good, or even not so good, ideas for snow removal?
Everyone's all a quiver in the office because there's a warning out that we're supposed to get 8-10 inches between tonight and tomorrow morning. Of course, the office won't close. Why would they do that? Negating the possibility of lost productivity is much more important than the safety of the employees.
I'm not too worried. It's just work, and if I get in a little late, I'll have to make adjustments from there. We won't be going to Brookfield tomorrow because we found out yesterday that the zoo is only open at night on Saturday and Sunday. Our friends in Milwaukee are supposed to get 15 inches, so they might not even be able to make it down anyway.
I have exactly one vacation day left for what's left of the year, which I've already planned on when I'm using that, so I have a feeling I'll be heading in tomorrow no matter the conditions. Good thing I know how to handle my P.O.S. car (don't get me started about that right now) in the snow. Just remember not to be afraid of the drifting and fishtailing, embrace them.
The advisory has been pushed back from 3 to 7 tonight, when I'll be at the library, probably bored to tears, so we'll see how it goes. How's the weather by you?
Just got back in from my lunch, and I don't know about where you are, but in the greater Chicagoland area, it is the most perfect day outside. The temperature is 76 and sunny with a smattering of clouds to the west and blue sky to the east. A breeze carries the scents of summer warmth and green grass. Insects buzz in the trees. Everything is good and calm and right with the world outside.
Makes me wish I was at home in the hammock right now. Too bad I'm stuck in the office for another hour and a half at least. How's the day by you?
I am a library professional, father, and husband. When I've got the time I like to read a little, write a little, or just float around in my own little delusions. You can contact me at mwarnock82 @ yahoo.com
