#12: How We Survived Ice Storm '96 (with only a few casualties)

When Ice Storm '96 hit, we were living in a rental on top of Orchard Bluff, north of Green Bluff. That's code for WAY UP THERE. I always thought we got more snow than everyone else, but now I'm thinking it's just because I was short. It's a little disappointing, not gonna lie. 


We were like a modern day Little House on the Prairie, though my dad never had quite that much hair.


What isn't an exaggeration, is how long we went without power when Ice Storm came through. Our house was already sans central air so every day we chopped firewood for the stove. That's right, mom and dad gave us an ax and said TIME TO EARN YOUR KEEP. I have no explanation for how we're all still here today. To add to that madness was the fact that we were on well water, and for those of you not versed in all things irrigation (aka those who think plumbers are just guys with long butt-cracks), it means where there's no power, there's no water. We were already living 10 in a house with only one bathroom, but suddenly we didn't even have that. Dad brought in a generator but we still had to follow a 3-step process whenever flushing the toilet. Anyway that's not my story.


This was back during a time when we actually enjoyed playing in the snow. Never mind that it took you 20 minutes to bundle up and by the time you were outside you were already tired... we were going to ENJOY IT, DAMNIT. We would build fortresses and have snowball fights, we even once built an igloo by filling recycle bins with snow and water, freezing them and stacking them one on top of the other. It was worth the work for the few days we had of a 3'x3' crawl space, despite the constant fear that we'd be buried alive if it were to collapse. And at the back of our 100-acre property were some hills, where water would accumulate and freeze over. It was our very own skating rink, which we took to every day in our tennis shoes.


But our favorite game was the climb atop the garage, and jump into the feet of snow below. This particular roof was constructed of long and narrow steel plates, and by the end of the day our snowsuits were near ripped to shreds. I distinctly remember our amusement at jumping (falling, let's be honest) so hard that we'd get lodged in the snow, and have to dig one another out. It's for this reason that come Springtime, we found a number of boots and gloves sitting next to the garage.


And then there's the time I went to climb onto the roof (accessible via a smaller side roof) and Luke pushed me. I rolled right off, dropping about 3 feet and onto the wheelbarrow. Would've been great if it'd been INTO the wheelbarrow, but I missed it by about a foot. It was a picturesque ricochet.