Share your snow stories here!

[Teller]

So today, I go to work, knowing full well we're going to get blasted with snow by early afternoon. Unfortunately, my car is garbage in the snow. (Mostly because I just put a new set of Goodyear all-weathers on it that are hard as hell, and virtually useless.)

Sure enough, around 12:30, it starts dumping snow. I mean near-white-out conditions. (And isn't near-white-out one of those things you HAVE to say when it snows? Along with "Nor'easter" and "stalled system?")

So anyway, we close early. Our finance manager, knowing what a POS my car is when it's slick out, volunteers to take me home. I jump in her Equinox, and off we go. I live about 6 miles from work, and it took us an hour to get in the general vicinity of my house.

We get stopped in traffic, on an uphill incline, about a mile from my neighborhood. The guy in front of us is in a TWO-WHEEL DRIVE Ford Ranger. He's spinning like a mofo, getting absolutely nowhere once traffic starts to move. So I go to his window, and ask him if he wants me to jump on the bumper to give him some weight over the rear-wheels (DON'T go there.) He agrees, and I jump on.

Sure enough, the truck starts to grab a little, and starts up the hill. I jump off, get back in my manager's car, and we pull up until traffic stops again.

Once again, Mr. Two-wheel gets stuck. This time, I don't even ask. I wave, to make sure he sees me. He waves back, and I jump on again. He lurches, up the hill we go, and before I know it, he's doing 25 or so. Now I'm ****ed. If he has to stop quickly, I'm going through his rear window. And I can't jump off, or I'm roadkill.

I feel the back wheels starting to fishtail (still at 25 mph) and I'm sure I'm gonna die. Buffy Bridges, my second-grade love, even flashed in front of my eyes. Damn, she was one hot 7-year old.

Dude gets stopped, I jump off again, and get back in the car, shaking like a leaf.

So we're headed down toward my neighborhood, when suddenly an ambulance appears behind us. My manager starts yelling, "Jason! What do I do?! What do I do?!"

The shoulder is a good eight-inches deep, so I told her to get as far over as she could, without getting in that stuff. But the ambulance doesn't pass her, even though there was room.

So finally I tell her to pull into the Colorado fresh powder, which she does. As she goes to pull back out, we nearly get clipped by a Titan, barreling by us at a speed far greater than safe. She manages to get back out into traffic, and I see the road to turn down into my neighborhood isn't plowed. It's a good eight inches deep, and no tire tracks.

I told her to pull to the side of the road, and I'll just jump out. Which I did, as she continued sliding about 10-12 more feet.

Great. Now I'm 3/4 of a mile from home, in a blinding snow storm, dressed up for work. I start trudging along, when suddenly I realize I'm walking past a neighbor's house, whose St. Bernard usually runs free, and is a mean mother ****er. Correction. Mean 130-pound mother ****er.

Sure enough, Bernie makes a beeline for me, even though I'm clear on the other side of the road from his house, and making sure not to look in his direction. He grabs my jacket and starts shaking as I scream bloody murder.

His **** of an owner comes out, and this ***** calls the dog back, and starts yelling at ME! It took everything I had not to run down through her yard and choke the ever-loving **** out of her. (A call to animal control seemed like the better option, so that's what I chose. After dropping a few C-, B-, and F-bombs, of course.)

I continue walking, proceed to fall and bust my ass twice, and finally make it home, looking like a pissed-off Frosty the Snowman.

To say that today sucked, would be a gross understatement.

Did it go better for y'all? :)

---------- Post added January-26th-2011 at 06:59 PM ----------

BTW, I made this a separate thread so as not to encroach on our amateur weathercasters here. If it should be merged, feel free with my apologies. :cheers:

[twa]

My daughter blew a radiator hose,changed to her husbands Jeep....got clipped and knocked into a ditch
along the way someone stole her purse

Ya'll are making me feel like I had a good day :pfft:

[Predicto]

I saw some snow last time I went up to Tahoe to ski. :)

Actually, we did get slow flurries one time, about 15 years ago, but they melted as soon as they hit the ground. It's too bad - It would have been fun to see cars drive on these streets in the snow...

http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/6603/endchasenorm.jpg (http://img46.imageshack.us/i/endchasenorm.jpg/)

:ols:


Oh, and H_H - the dog was sent by Obama. FYI.

[Corcaigh]

HH,

You need better neighbors.

I was busy on a conference call while working from home in my slippers. My neighbor borrowed our snowblower and cleared our driveways.

That's all I got. :-)

I'll probably give it another pass and then put my 'snow trax' on my shoes and go for a run on the neighborhood streets. Can let my run streak stop because of 8 inches of snow on the ground.

[Forehead]

As we speak, my wife has been stuck on a major road for three hours with an infant in the car. Apparently, some idiot managed to catch their car on fire, and VDOT didn't bother to start plowing until well after the snow had started. A ton of people are stuck on inclines and will have to be towed individually, and the fire and rescue folks won't open the other side of the road (where there is no traffic) to let people get home.

Prince William County, Fire and Rescue, pretty much everyone in charge can go **** themselves. My wife may not get home until midnight at this rate, I can only imagine how our 8 month old is handling it.

[Teller]

My wife may not get home until midnight at this rate, I can only imagine how our 8 month old is handling it.

I withdraw my ***** session. Wow. Sorry to hear that, P.

[Hubbs]

I stopped three times to help total strangers get their econo-cars unstuck. I expect karma to reward me with an unanticipated blowjob any moment now.

[Teller]

Oh, and H_H - the dog was sent by Obama. FYI.

Whew.

In that case, I'm glad he went with the dog instead of the fire hose. ;)

[PokerPacker]

Nothing crazy, but I'm currently stuck on campus because of snow and incompetent drivers. ****ing George Mason is terrible with snow closings :mad:

If it weren't so ****ing cold, I'd take the hour walk home.

[Teller]

I stopped three times to help total strangers get their econo-cars unstuck. I expect karma to reward me with an unexpected blowjob any moment now.

:ols: :ols: :ols:

[ffxdrummer]

Nothing crazy, but I'm currently stuck on campus because of snow and incompetent drivers. ****ing George Mason is terrible with snow closings :mad:

If it weren't so ****ing cold, I'd take the hour walk home.
Head over to the Patriot Center, listen to the band play for awhile (game is delayed) then watch Mason beat the crap out of Towson.

[PokerPacker]

Head over to the Patriot Center, listen to the band play for awhile (game is delayed) then watch Mason beat the crap out of Towson.

I may just do that. What kind of music we got over there?

[The Brave Little Toaster Oven]

I stopped three times to help total strangers get their econo-cars unstuck. I expect karma to reward me with an unexpected blowjob any moment now.

dude, I just got offered one from the Hawaiian Tropic Bikini Team, but told them there was a guy back your way who would really appreciate it....I think I sent them the wrong way though

[tchrpe1]

Our tenant decided at 2:15 PM that he was going to drive back to to the eastern shore tonight because he wanted to go home. He is currently sitting on the the Woodrow Wilson Bridge.

[ffxdrummer]

I may just do that. What kind of music we got over there?

Ah, looks like the band's taking a break, but djs cranking your usual tunes. It's war, there's food, and a b-ball game (eventually) though.

[PokerPacker]

Ah, looks like the band's taking a break, but djs cranking your usual tunes. It's war, there's food, and a b-ball game (eventually) though.

Just heard from a friend its now postponed indefinitely instead of just to 9:00 because the other team's having problems getting here. (big surprise, considering I'm having problems getting out of here).

[ffxdrummer]

Just heard from a friend its now postponed indefinitely instead of just to 9:00 because the other team's having problems getting here. (big surprise, considering I'm having problems getting out of here).

Moved to 4 pm tomorrow. In that case, maybe walk over to Sub 1 and see if the Game Room/Rathskellar/whatever it is now is open? Or walk to University Mall to Fat Tuesdays.
Or walk home and watch an uneventful Caps game.


Now back to your regularly scheduled snow stories thread.

[Slacky McSlackAss]

Nothing crazy, but I'm currently stuck on campus because of snow and incompetent drivers. ****ing George Mason is terrible with snow closings :mad:

If it weren't so ****ing cold, I'd take the hour walk home.

The streets of Fairfax are terrible everywhere. I usually take 66E to 50W to get to work, I saw 66E was backed up like anything so I thought I'd be smart and stay on 123 and just take 50W the entire way through Fairfax, I got about a mile up before giving up and telling my manager I wasn't coming in. Turned around and proceeded to go home. Now there's three ways for me to get home from 123. First way I make it about a mile and a half before I realize there's a huge downhill turn that most people are probably stuck on. So I'm getting ready to turn around and I get stuck, I somehow am able to reverse out of the snow/slush/ice mix and make my way back to 123. So I try route number 3 since it's also a road with an elementary school and high school on it, thinking they had to pretreat it pretty well and at least have some of it plowed. Boy was I wrong, there's a slight hill as you turn on to the street that I end up getting stuck on. Once again I miraculously find my way out of it and am able to get back on to 123. So I try and get myself in to the neighborhood that's outside my house, thinking that I'll just leave my car there and walk the rest of the mile. I was somehow able to make my way through the neighborhood and back home. So, 3 hours of driving just to get about 8 miles total.


My dad is currently stuck on Route 7 and hasn't moved for nearly 2 hours.

[LD0506]

Damn h_h, sucks to be you, didn't you even consider a snowball 'tween the eyes when he got within range? You're obviously a kinder soul than I am.

Went nowhere, spent the morning building a snowman with my 7 yr old, then hit the neighbors driveway w/ the snowblower. All in all, that's what I consider a good day.

[Slacky McSlackAss]

Just heard from a friend its now postponed indefinitely instead of just to 9:00 because the other team's having problems getting here. (big surprise, considering I'm having problems getting out of here).

You're def not going anywhere any time soon. Might as well head to JC, relax, and watch the Caps game.

[PokerPacker]

You're def not going anywhere any time soon. Might as well head to JC, relax, and watch the Caps game.

you just described exactly what I've been doing... except that my netbook is a piece of crap and has really choppy video making the Caps game suck to watch.

[Slacky McSlackAss]

you just described exactly what I've been doing... except that my netbook is a piece of crap and has really choppy video making the Caps game suck to watch.

Just change the channel on one of those TVs outside the library on the 2nd level.

[aamiha73]

About twenty years ago I ran over a mail box on my way home from a January volleyball tournament. Snow started falling hard midday and the tourney didn't conclude til about 9-10pm. Driving home I slid down a hill, couldn't make the turn at the bottom and relieved a property of its mailbox. I felt bad. Then about a mile and a half from my house I couldn't make it up a hill so I had to hoof it the rest of the way home. Snow... fun stuff.

[DButz65]

Here is my story............




























THIS **** SUCKS!!! End of story, that is all :ols:

[PokerPacker]

Still stuck at Mason...

[Heisenberg]

you just described exactly what I've been doing... except that my netbook is a piece of crap and has really choppy video making the Caps game suck to watch.


From what I saw on my DVR it wasn't the choppy video making the Caps game suck to watch . . . lol

[Hitman21ST]

April Fools Day, 2009: Some prick arsonist lights a Kid's playground, named Fun Forest, on fire. The City of Chesapeake takes about 8 months to get in touch with the original designer and have him come up with a new design for the rebuild. A call goes out for volunteers to work, which I sign up for, since I helped build the thing as a kid.

About 2 days before it is scheduled to happen, it snows about an inch or two, just enough to get the ground slick after 2 days of refreezing. I show up in my 2003 Silverado Z 71 4X4 the morning of and get to work. The City has a work-release program for non-violent convicts, and they happen to be working that day. My shift runs its course, we get a decent amount of work done, and during that time, a city worker had to drive a city truck (Ford F-250) into the work area to drop supplies off.

Long story short, the F-250 gets stuck in the mud, spinning its tires, having an all-around bad time. That's when I have the bright idea: I can tow it out! I drive my truck around, pop it into 4 wheel drive, hook up the chains, and proceed to tow a bigger Ford out of the snow/mud/slush, to the cheers of the convicts. They started making so much fun of the city worker and his truck. I can't say it didn't give me a little measure of satisfaction in my Chevy 1500 towing his F-250 out of the slush.

Bowtie Beast FTW!

[Iced Coffee]

Still stuck at Mason...

how is it there?

I am really pissed at mason. they didn't let us know classes were canceled until 3:30 saying classes after 4:15 are closed. That is ****ing ridiculous and defintely not enough time for a heads up.

epic fail.

[BayouBrave86]

People are still stuck in traffic? Wow.

[China]

I was at a conference downtown. It was the final day of the conference so it ended early. I got home before 3pm and relaxed inside as the snow came down. I watched out my window as traffic stalled on Rte. 29 in the heavy snow. At 9:30 rush hour was still ongoing on Rte 29 with traffic barely moving.

I'm just happy I avoided commuting home during rush hour, it would have been a nightmare.

:)

[BayouBrave86]

I don't remember it being this bad last year even with the massive snow storms. Is it because of the time of day it hit?

[DarrellsMyHero28]

I have no snow.

I am not pleased.

[herrmag]

WTF is wrong with people? My gf came home from Tyson's (took her almost 7 hours), and said that people were just nasty as hell on the roads. She got out to help an old lady get unstuck, while grown ****ing men sat in there cars staring daggers at them and/or honking. I know chivalry is dead, but WTF happened to common decency? My gf is 5' 2", maybe 105lbs, and she's pushing a car while MEN sit in theirs and don't help. I'm in awe.

[BayouBrave86]

Selfishness has taken over this country.

[fullnelson9999]

My Starbucks closed at 6PM today and I got out of there around 6:30. By that time, I had watched the road in front of the store get more and more crowded until I realized that it would take forever to get home. My mom left work at 3:30 and managed to drop off her credit card at the store because my car was almost out of gas and it wouldn't last in the traffic. At that point, it was 5:30. My mom had left work hours before, and had only traveled about a mile.

After digging out my car (some douche plow driver decided to block me in even though he wasn't supposed to plow the road behind the shopping center), I managed to drive to the gas station and fil up my car. At that point, it was probably 7:15.

Fast forward four and a half hours. Now I'm home. I haven't been driving as long as most people here, but I can't ever imagine having a worse commute. If anyone knows the Chantilly area, I work at the Starbucks in Chantilly Crossing, next to the Target and Costco, near the intersection of 50 and 28. I live near Rocky Run Middle School and Chantilly High School. That's usually only a 5 minute drive.

[Hubbs]

My friend left work in Manassas at 4:30 to try to get home to Arlington. She spent seven and a half hours on the road, mostly stuck on 50, and just checked into a hotel about 20 minutes ago. :doh:

[SonOfWashington]

**** guys and gals I'm so sorry. Sounds like things are rough down there...

[Hubbs]

**** guys and gals I'm so sorry. Sounds like things are rough down there...

I've never seen the roads like this. Never. This didn't happen after any round of Snowmaggeddon last year, and it didn't happen when I was living in Boston, either. (Yes, they're obviously better prepared, but they also get a lot more snow.) I think it was a terrible combination of the storm hitting right at rush hour, the fact that it sleeted for about an hour before snowing, the heaviness of the snow itself (I've heard about a lot of downed trees), and what seemed like woeful underpreperation by road services. That last one might be unfair, though, because I think the sleet had a major impact. There was enough of it to form a thin later of ice between the snow and the road. I spent years in Boston, and my "main" relatives live in Buffalo, Chicago, and Iowa. I've seen a lot of snow. People were getting stuck in levels of snow I've never seen trap anyone before. I'm talking less than an inch. And it was happening all over the place.

To put things in perspective, my doctor's office is about a mile and a half away, and he has "open hours" on Wednesdays from 5:30 to 8. I needed to swing by, so I left around 5 because the mile and a half is made up of slow, busy roads that are a pain in the ass even without snow. There was an inch to an inch and a half on the ground at the time, with what seemed like your usual slush on the main roads where the driving was constant. Thing was, there was nothing "usual" about this slush. It had superpowers. At first I tried to go my standard way, but the traffic wasn't moving on that road. I don't mean that in the usual "not moving" sense of an overcongested rush hour mess. I mean, I waited five minutes to turn onto the road from a side street, and then took my foot off the brake four times over the next fifteen minutes to move less than a block. What was the problem? There were stuck cars blocking everything, but they had no business being stuck. Yes, they were your usual two-wheel drive small cars. They still had no business being stuck. I couldn't believe that these cars couldn't move. I've seen tiny coupes navigate three times as much snow. Eventually, I wound up making a U-turn to go backwards because the other direction was, mercifully, still open. I tried to use a secondary route, and the problem was the same there. I even tried a third way. Nope. I literally had no access to a huge swath of territory. I couldn't go more than about a quarter-mile north of my house. The people I helped on the way back were all completely trapped in stuff they've probably driven through a thousand times.

All that is to say, I think plows and sand/salt trucks seemed largely nonexistent for the first few hours because they couldn't get to many of the places they expected to be sweeping regularly.

[Mr. Sinister]

Hubbs, it's terrible out there. I live in Waldorf, and coming down 301, there were indeed a lot of downed trees. The roads looked like they were barely even touched. Terrible, just terrible. Add Maryland drivers on top of it, and there isn't a facepalm epic enough to describe my evening.

[Kosher Ham]

WTF is wrong with people? My gf came home from Tyson's (took her almost 7 hours), and said that people were just nasty as hell on the roads. She got out to help an old lady get unstuck, while grown ****ing men sat in there cars staring daggers at them and/or honking. I know chivalry is dead, but WTF happened to common decency? My gf is 5' 2", maybe 105lbs, and she's pushing a car while MEN sit in theirs and don't help. I'm in awe.

I have witnessed this far too many times, even in good weather. Bunch of chumps. Chivalry is not dead, just dying. Along with part of the role of being a MAN.

[LD0506]

WTF is wrong with people? My gf came home from Tyson's (took her almost 7 hours), and said that people were just nasty as hell on the roads. She got out to help an old lady get unstuck, while grown ****ing men sat in there cars staring daggers at them and/or honking. I know chivalry is dead, but WTF happened to common decency? My gf is 5' 2", maybe 105lbs, and she's pushing a car while MEN sit in theirs and don't help. I'm in awe.

This is way beyond the usual state of "people suck!" More than embarrassed, I'd be outright ashamed. KH nailed it, but anyone that reads this and and agrees should make an extra effort to pitch in helping others, just so the chumps don't completely take over. **** like this is a gutcheck, yanno?

[Elessar78]

I never realized that I moved away from the DC area to ESCAPE the snow. I moved to Western, PA-- land of lake effects and I feel sorry for you guys! I think the main difference here is that we have an armada of snow plows, definitely higher per capita than in DC. Add to that there's a higher percentage of blue collar workers willing to do that type of job.

The traffic is one of the top reasons I left the DC area. I miss many many many things from there but not the traffic and the commutes. Really sorry for you guys. I'd love to come back like Gandalf at dawn during the seige of Helms Deep riding my white snow plow. It's really too early to geek out.

[Mark The Homer]

Saw blue flash thundersnow lightening for the second time in my life last night. First time was last winter.

[Hitman21ST]

Saw blue flash thundersnow lightening

Is that a real thing? It sounds like the newest Japanimation cartoon...

[skinsfan_1215]

My girlfriend got off work in DC at 2:30, didn't get home until 5:45 (metro to Vienna, roads to our apt in Fair Oaks area). Took an hour to go the last 2 miles. So of course being the hardcore Mason fans we are we immediately left again for the basketball game. We took the back roads as much as possible and avoided 29 and Braddock completely. The roads were terrible but I've got an AWD Subaru Impreza that handled it perfectly.

Once we finally got on campus, parked, and got into the Patriot Center about 15 minutes before tip off was scheduled, we realized Towson wasn't even there yet (stuck on 495 because the idiots didn't leave until 3pm- I left Tyson's at 3 and had a hard time getting to Fairfax). The game eventually got postponed until today.

I left and took my brother over to the West Campus parking lot to get his snow pants, then took him back to campus. The intersection of 123 and University Dr sucked each of the 4 times I went through it. People really turn into complete idiots when it snows. They were pulling into the intersection and blocking it completely.

I took the back roads through the older neighborhoods in Fairfax back (cut over to Jermantown Rd), and they were a DEATHTRAP. The snow was deep, people were out walking around for some reason, and trees and powerlines were down everywhere. I had to turn around several time because of downed lines in the roads. Made it really interesting. It was still snowing pretty good at that point, and we witnessed some pretty neat thundersnow. There was also a scary moment when a transformer blew right as we went underneath it. The BOOM was really loud and made both of us jump.

Finally made it back about 9pm spent about 15 minutes kicking snow out of a parking spot so we could get in and out of it well. All in all not a bad experience, just had to put up with a bunch of people who had absolutely no business being on the road at that point.

[China]

I counted over 20 abandoned cars on my trip in to work this morning. Apparently a lot of people just gave up.