Just Put On Your Big Girl Panties And Deal With It: 2011 Blizzard...Johnson Style!

So it's no surprise that we had a blizzard a few days ago. I guess I'll start from the beginning. Tuesday morning I had an appointment with my favorite foot doctor (who, by the way, took his family to Disney World over Christmas, due largely in part to my regular visits!) My appointment was at 10 AM, but I went in 40 minutes early, figuring he'd have some cancellations. I was right! I was on my way home by 10 AM! At this point in time, it was snowing pretty good, but the wind hadn't quite picked up yet. I went on an ambulance call at 1:30 PM, and that was pretty rough. The snow was deep, and the wind had picked up a lot. That may have been the worst drive to the hospital I've ever had! We got our patient situated at the hospital, which was a ghost-town at this point as they sent all but a bare-bones crew home before the storm got really bad. We were met by our EMS coordinator, who advised that we have to make an effort to get to our patients if we are called, but also reminded us that our safety is KEY! (I feel like I need to add here that we have a group called the Knox County Snowmobile Search and Rescue Team (SRT) that has been in place for quite a few years, but we have never had to call them out.) He also reminded us to use SRT (duh, they are stationed in our fire department!) if we needed to.

Well, let's just say the SRT have been going pretty much non-stop for 3 days! For about 20 hours, they were the ONLY people on the roads. Plows and dozers were getting stuck in the drifts. County deputies and state troopers were stranded. People who had tried to drive home after work were stranded on the highways, sometimes with kids inside. And the roads were a total mess! The winds, sometimes, were as high as 50 MPH, and it was snowing soooo hard, that it created huge, and I mean HUGE, snow drifts.

In my naivety, I honestly thought that I'd be able to respond to calls from my house, as I'm literally only 4 blocks from the station. I don't think I understood the magnitude of this storm. I mean I knew what they were predicting, but I didn't realize how bad it would be. I planned on sticking around home for a few days, as I knew I'd have lots of calls and wouldn't be able to leave town. I didn't realize I wouldn't be able to leave my front door, let alone my driveway! Oh, and I did get my car stuck...twice...right in front of my house. My brother, thank God, came to my rescue though!

Now that it's all said and done, I think we've learned a lot. Our fire station is a warming center for the town (thank God no one lost power!), and we had cots, but no food. Well, that's a lie, we have a ton of pancake mix, but that wouldn't have gotten us very far. I think I'll be making a trip to Sam's Club in the near future to get some non-perishables to keep on hand up there (we do have a large back-up generator.) And next time, I'll be staying at the station. I prayed that our pagers wouldn't go off, because there was no way I could get out. By the grace of God, they didn't. People, for the most part, stayed put at home. The SRT saved a lot of lives in the past few days, and I'm so thankful that they are dedicated to their communities!!!

I took some pictures to share with you. They're not the best quality, as I used my phone's camera, but I think you'll get the idea. The drifts aren't as pronounced in the pictures as I would have liked, but the drifts in our yard are well over 4 feet tall! It's going to take a LONG time for all of this snow to go away! Enjoy!

This is my little pal Mason trying to sled down a drift. You can't tell too well from the pictures, but the drift on the deck was up to the top pane of glass on the screen door! My brother and I had to go over and shovel them a path to get out of their house!

My neighbor's mail box, surrounded by snow!

My favorite coffee shop! This is in Galesburg, on a two-lane street. There was no where to go with the snow, so they just plowed it up in the "middle" of the road! Crazy!