Waiting for the Storm

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The snow/ice storm has been at the top of the news for days and days. It was supposed to sweep over much of the country, dropping snow and freezing rain. I’m eagerly waiting to see what will happen, because if a storm is hyped for days, it rarely delivers really bad weather. It’s already over 24 hours late, which is nothing new.

David and I went to the grocery store one day before the storm. Normally people rush out at the last minute to buy bread, milk, and eggs. I’ve seen bare shelves in New York stores, but Ingles (my favorite store here) appeared normal. The shopping crowd seemed about the same. David and I noticed only one shelf that was totally bare. Want to guess what had been there? Bottled water! That makes sense, because if people with a well don’t have a generator, the pump in the well will not run if the electricity is off.

I walked as usual the morning of the storm, spotting at least 15 snowflakes drifting down. I wouldn’t have seen them if I hadn’t run into them. Snow is fun to watch when you can see it, but darkness may fall before this storm lives up to its name. On Friday, both churches I have gone to announced no services on Sunday. That includes one church on Long Island and one in Asheville, 1,261 km (783 miles) apart.

If this storm does begin and if my power fails, I won’t be reading and responding to email or blog posts until systems are put back together.

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Published by Anne Mehrling

I'm a retiree who loves to write about life in the mountains of North Carolina.

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52 thoughts on “Waiting for the Storm”

  1. The storm seems to be pretty much on schedule here in West Virginia! We are sitting watching and waiting!! I hate that most of it will fall after dark.

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  2. I think you will get it before we do. It’s not expected here until early morning Sunday although the projected start time jumps around. It’s come when it’s ready. Just hope it’s not as bad as they say. Grocery stores are normal here. The only thing sold out is salt and snow blowers! We bought an extra pizza in case we need comfort food! 🙂 We have soup in the crock pot so we are good. I just hope the power doesn’t go out. We can use our gas fireplace without electricity but that’s not enough warmth for the downstairs.

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  3. I am glad to hear you are okay thus far! I was thinking about you just now and wondering. We are iced in here, but still have power, and thus, water and heat. Take good care!

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  7. Anne, I laughed when I saw the small amount of snow this morning. I thought Bruce could’ve come home and I could’ve gone to his dad’s funeral. I opened the door to go outside and heard the sleet. I stuck my hand out past the roof line, yep, sleet not rain. In short order, ice coated the grass, and Nox was very unhappy with having to walk on that cold icy grass.

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  12. I hope you have not gotten like what we have. The highest temperature I have seen since Friday was 10 degrees. The nights have been single digits. We have a lot of snow and sleet on the ground. We are to stay below freezing for many more days. Hope you are warm and safe.

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      1. Yes, too much stress, but that cold in the house would cause frozen pipes – bigtime stress. You could put your frozen food outside in Rubbermaid tubs except for your bears that are around.

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        1. The generator keeps the refrigerator going, so I don’t have to worry about food going bad. The water heater is gas and will run without electricity. It’s wonderful to have hot water when the house is cold. But I don’t have is heat. The heat pumps will not run without power, and they are not tied to the generator.

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          1. That’s right – well you do have a problem that way. I know they recommend space heaters when there is a furnace issue and to keep one around for frozen pipes also, but we have so many fires here in Winter, most of them caused by space heaters.

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              1. I see … well the space heater is an option as you have the generator – thank goodness for the generator. I check mine every day when I am doing a back and front yard check, even though I can check it online if it “ready to run” and the green light is on.

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                  1. I do check it and can check it online if it rainy or stormy to ensure it is ready to run. I have a tune-up every September around the 13th … two years in a row it was on September 13th and so this year I booked it for the 10th I think to ensure I got it done for the warranty, etc. So my tech, that finally figured out the problem back in 2022 after it was installed, was pulled away to be on large job. So I had to wait for him to be available. I passed that September 13th anniversary mark and the generator button turned yellow – not ready to run/offline.

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                    2. Yes, in this type of weather, I always check it daily. My new worry and I wouldn’t share this on my blog, but I do worry that someone would get angry if the neighborhood or city had a power loss and here I am sittin’ pretty with heat, electricity, etc. We had no power for 72 hours in February in 2023, the year after I got the generator. There are a lot of angry people in the world right now. The same goes for in the Summer. We lost power the end of June when a rodent bit a cable in a substation. The power went out briefly for a second or two, just enough to cause the generator to go on, then the power returned. It was a sickening hot day, 90s and what happened was that the substation went to back-up power, but all the strain on the grid caused the backup power to go out in mid-afternoon until 11:00 p.m. A homeowner behind me has a gas-powered portable generator, but he is the only one around here. The heat would be a pain, but you wouldn’t die from it as you could go to the basement in a pinch, or a grocery store to cool off or the mall, but in the cold, it’s a different thing. So, despite having the security of keeping my power on in extreme weather, I still have this worry.

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                    4. Well, I have never mentioned this to anyone – they might think I am crazy, but yes, I do worry and you have a generator, so you know it does make a noise when it runs nonstop and is loud. I hope I never encounter a problem but it is in the back of my mind nonetheless.

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                    6. Mine is behind my bedroom so when it does its self-test/run every Tuesday at 1:00 p.m., it just runs at half-power for the test, but when it fires up and runs when the power is out, it is quite loud. After I go to bed, it keeps me awake for a while, but I eventually fall asleep. There is a small part of me that is nervous having it behind where I sleep but that is because it had so many problems in the beginning and the night of the downed wire fire, I heard the wire drop onto the chain-link fence and the generator turned on and it woke me up and the noise the downed wire made, I thought it was the generator … I lost some years off my life that night.

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