Love/Hate Relationship With Mother Nature

This morning we awoke to flurries and cold temps.  Yesterday I covered as many new plants and spring growth coming up that I could.  My beautiful front door tree view blooms are now brown 😦 the cold damaged them.  I have a love/hate relationship this time of year with Mother Nature.

March of 1993 we had a record snow storm hit our city.  Here is the write up as well other record snowfalls:

The Blizzard of ’93 – Record Snowfalls

Posted: Mar 13, 2013 3:16 PM EDTUpdated: Mar 13, 2013 5:15 PM EDT

CHATTANOOGA, TN (WRCB) — Today is 20th anniversary of the Blizzard of ’93.
          
Not everyone believed we would get a record snow in the middle of March. But our own Chief Meteorologist Paul Barys warned us to be prepared.  
     
The snow started falling late Friday night. By Saturday morning, the city was covered with nearly two feet of snow in some places. Eighteen and-a-half inches of that falling in just one day.  Both Interstates 24 & 75 were shut down, stranding motorists.  The heavy weight of the snow collapsed the roof of the old Sam’s Club, and at a carpet outlet in Dalton, Georgia.  Seventy-two thousand Electric Power Board (EPB) customers lost power. Crews worked non-stop for eight days before getting all power restored.   – – The Blizzard of ’93 is EPB’s third most expensive storm in company history.

The second highest one day snowfall in Chattanooga was on December 4, 1886 when 12 inches blanketed the city.

Coming in at number 3: January 7, 1988 when 10 inches of snow fell in Chattanooga. At the time, it was the most snow seen in Chattanooga in more than 75 years.  It started falling overnight, and by morning many roads were impassable.  Cars skidded off the interstate and slid into the median wall.  Police ended up stopping traffic at the bottom of the ridgecut while crews worked to clear snow from the roadway.

And many of you remember to big snow just two years ago. Nearly eight and-a-half inches fell between midnight and sunrise January 10, 2011.  – – That snow comes in at number 10 on the list of highest one-day snowfalls in Chattanooga.

 

Unfortunately I got to experience all but one of these storms. (Yay for me)

The first storm (’88) Heather was 3 years old, she and her dad decided that would be the perfect time to contract a nasty “stomach” bug.  It was horrible.  We lived in a subdivision at the top of a hill.  Nobody could get out or in their driveway.  I had to walk to the store for get medication / disinfectant / additional cleaning supplies.

The second snow storm “blizzard” I lived in our current home.  We had and still do, have natural gas heating, a gas stove as well as a gas (electric one now) water heater .  We were the only ones who had warm water and could cook a meal!  I remember family members and friends who lived within walking distance coming over taking showers.  We had electric heat upstairs so I put blankets across every open doorway to keep the heat in the living room where the main heat source was – gas fireplace.  I filled water containers to freeze placed them and the cold food outside in coolers. At that time the girls were 8 & 4 years old.  We played a lot of card/board games, colored, barbies, baby dolls and tea parties.  They would get so disappointed when evening came because of having no lights only candles and oil lamps meant they had to go to bed extremely early.  We camped out in our living room and did everything we could to stay warm and make it an enjoyable time.  I’m not sure how long they would have survived with this routine – 8 days seemed like an eternity to them.  We had no idea when the power was going to be restored in our area (we live further north and had a bit more snow making it harder to regain power) and although we had groceries I was becoming a bit nervous for fear of running out.  After all was said and done we still talk about the blizzard of ’93 and the memories made. Side note – a few years later central H&A was isntalled (old house didn’t have any) but I was adamant about keeping the gas fireplace and some of the heating units which came in handy for the last encounter of snow we got.

Robin had never seen “so much snow” and to him it was incredible.  We built numerous snowmen, had tons of snowball fights, made several snow angels and drank gallons of hot chocolate.  Wonderful memories – yet again.

Now to some of my Northern friends these snowfalls may not seem a lot to you but keep  in mind, just a few weeks ago (mid February) we were experiencing 80-82F weather! People were out and about in shorts, tees and flip-flops.  This lasted for almost 2 weeks and as you can tell we really don’t get that much snow around here.  So you can only imagine the dread of the word snow and cold temps being heard or predicted.

Stay warm my colder climate friends and enjoy the sun my warmer climate friends….

Advertisement