October Nor'easter Slammed Us

New England is well known for its crazy weather but this particular storm caught most of us off guard. A big storm like this in October? Very rare. I'm not sure I've ever seen a storm like this. The snow was so wet and heavy that it took down trees, branches, and power lines throughout New England and over three million people are still without electricity. We were one of the lucky ones and our power was restored within 24 hours but most of our city is in the dark. It will be a week before some folks have electricity again. What's hard is that with temperatures in the twenties, no electricity means no heat for many people. I guess it's a little better than when the ice storm hit us a few years back, the temperature was in the single digits that time. We had to sleep with coats and hats on!

One of the power lines that leads to our building caught on fire during the storm. It was dropping sparks on the cars in our parking lot (we live in a condo) and was working its way to the building. The fire department came and looked at it but simply told us to call them if the line came down. I watched the fire worm its way down the wire and it made me quite nervous. "Lord," I prayed, "I'll never be able to get to sleep with that wire on fire so close to the building. Could you put it out, please?" Less than three minutes later a tree above the wire let go of a huge load of snow and the snow put out the fire. "Wow! Lord, you work quickly!"  Fire wouldn't be my first choice when it comes to dying. Not that we get a choice but it never hurts to give the Lord a heads up.

The roads were cleared of snow fairly quickly this morning so we attended Mass ( dirty, because there was no hot water and nobody takes a cold shower when there's no heat in the house) and then went to my parents' house for breakfast since they have a gas stove. As we drove and looked around we were shocked by the damage the storm left in its wake. There were tree limbs and downed trees everywhere! On cars, houses, in the road...it was crazy! No one seemed to escape this storm unscathed. Heavy snow and high winds can cause a lot of damage. The clean up around here will take weeks... if not months.

It seems that we are constantly breaking weather records these past few years. What next? Tornadoes in the Winter?