By Justin Bates

Thursday night when I got home I got out all the snow shovels just in case, to be ready for what could happen, and thank the Lord I got them out because that night the snow hit hard. I would go outside about every two hours, just shoveling my front door out from the drifts. I went to bed that night knowing that I might get snowed in, so I set my alarm so I would wake up, so I could shovel.

But my power went out and I never woke up, and with the snow just filling in overnight the drifts grew larger and larger with fury, filling in almost everybody’s entrance and exit. But that didn’t stop me. I crawled out my basement window that morning to find a thirty foot drift in front of my garage. I was in no man’s land, the forbidden territory, the wind whooping over the drift, carrying snow around. I felt like a mountain man, all my hunting and tracking training came into place. I made a pair of snow shows with a cardboard box and cut holes in them for traction. I threw a rope with a good placing hook to catch on the other side, using the rope to help keep me upright but not to hold my sheer weight. Once I got to the top I could see nothing but a barren wasteland of snow and more snow. A good six feet of snow had piled in front of my door and I shoveled it out.

And that was just the first day.