Arctic Blast 2010

The forecast over the weekend said it was possible we would get some snow flurries Sunday night and Monday morning.  But don't get your hopes up, they said.  Especially in the low lands, they said.

I woke up to a heavy dusting of snow yesterday morning, with even more falling.  The roads weren't too bad so I had no trouble getting to work.  And again, the rumor was that this was a fluke, so I wasn't worried about the drive home at all.

Until 3:30pm.  The snow really started coming down and Todd called to say that there were blizzard like conditions in West Seattle.  He and Kayleigh had walked down to QFC and were beaten by the wind on the way home.

So, I declared I was done for the day and wanted to get a head start on the drive home. 

It took one hour to actually see the on-ramp to the freeway (normally a 3 minute drive), and another hour to make it to the West Seattle Bridge, and then 45 minutes to creep up and over the ice covered bridge, tackling 30mph winds once I crested the top, then down the ice covered bridge, and around to Alaska, where I almost ran into two cars, one in each lane, spinning and sliding around, trying to get going.  I just sat there patiently and waited until they either slid out of the way or got some traction and moved forward.

I finally made it home and had to literally pry my fingers off the steering wheel.  The family was gathered in the living room watching the ARCTIC BLAST 2010 coverage on the news.  When we went to bed, the wind was still howling and the trees were scraping against the house and you could hear the ice hitting the windows.

And when my alarm went off at 6:30am this morning, Todd came in to tell me that the city was shut down and the street in front of our house was a solid sheet of ice.

Well, okay fine.  I'm staying home.

My department had discussed "inclement weather" procedures just a couple of weeks ago, and I was told that if things were bad enough for me to need to stay home, there probably wouldn't be any work for me to do from home, so I would need to take a vacation day or take the day unpaid. 

Luckily, I have plenty of vacation time. 

So I turned on my Out of Office on my work email ("Thanks for your email but I am stuck at home during Arctic Blast 2010"), and enjoyed my day off.  Todd, Kayleigh and I walked down to the Junction to search for some snow boots for the girl (consignment store SCORE! $16), and to get some lunch.  I really wanted to put up the Christmas decorations today, but seeing as how Turkey Day is still two days away, I made myself wait.

Since we're not supposed to get above freezing today, I'm not getting my hopes up about driving in tomorrow morning.  Anything that happened to melt will just refreeze.  I knew this winter would be a humdinger, but I didn't think it would start this early.

I can't wait to see what it's like at Christmas.