20 YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF BLIZZARD

This is my view of the sun on the way to school in the mornings since the time changed. It is not quite over the mountains yet instead of directly in my eyes when I turn left off this road onto the main road the school is on. As you can see by the water spots on the window it rained hard last night,about 1 1/4" in the gauge this morning.
I had a cake order to deliver after dropping g-son off then headed home to get Tuesday's laundry and housework started.
I made out a new house cleaning schedule and will try it out for a couple weeks,hopefully it will be easier when the temperature warms up  and I can get back to my early morning walks that I'm really missing lately.
#2 son came over after lunch and dug up the rest of the Murray Cypress trees along the road.

I went to pick up g-son and he surprised me with his spring pictures,they are so good.

He is looking more and more like a little man !! He was very proud of this picture and had to put it in the frame on the wall over his fall pic as soon as we got home.
While he ate and relaxed as he said he was very tired this afternoon I sewed up another couple bonnets.

This day marks a historic time  around here, 20 years ago. The blizzard of 1993 hit March 12,   dumping over 4 feet of snow in places and packing winds over 100mph. More than 250 people lost their lives including one man we knew in town when a limb crashed through his roof and hit him.The storm caused over 3 billion dollars in damage from Alabama to Maine and our NC mountains were right in the middle of it.

This winter storm took the shape of a hurricane and at times it felt like we were in the middle of a snow hurricane.

Factors that had never happened before and haven't happened since came together to create the monster storm.

At our farm,luckily we had enough warning to get extra hay to all the rented pastures we had cattle in so we only lost one calf that was born right in the middle of the worst of the snow storm.
When the snow started visibility was near zero with the strong winds whipping the heavy snow.

The amount of snow on this table was early in the storm.
Nothing anywhere in any of the buildings escaped the blowing snow.

Lots of trees around the farm were blown over in the high winds as the landscape changed forever in places.

In 1993 #1 son was 11 years old, #2 son had just turned 10 and daughter was getting ready to turn 8.
We lost our electric power for 5 days and cooked on the wood stove along with a couple camp stoves we had,totally forgot about the gas grill buried in the snow on the deck !
Those buckets in the back ground of this picture were kept full of melting snow to flush commodes.
I never dreamed it took so much snow to make a little bit of water !!

Playing outside wasn't much fun in this deep snow.

All the snow piled on this deck caused it to pull loose from the house and we had to have a new one built.

We finally got  a tractor dug out and hubbie began scooping the snow out of the roads,it was way to deep to push.

 That's Hank our dog at the time,thankful to have a place to walk.

 

All the animals were appreciative of a place to walk that wasn't 2 feet of snow.

All the limbs blown from the trees made this a very dirty snow.We were left with huge piles everywhere.

At least the kids had a place to sled with the driveway scooped out.

Even after DOT scraped the road walking was the main mode of travel for days.

There wasn't any use getting out because none of the stores were open,they either didn't have power or were snowed completely in. One of our friends who ran the dairy where we bought all our calves gave milk away to anyone who could come and get it. It was better than just pouring it out as the milk truck couldn't get there to pick it up.
I had never been through anything even close to this in my life before or since and hope this was a "once in a lifetime" event. I know for a long time after almost a week without power the kids and hubbie and I were appreciative of the convenience of running water !!
We were lucky to have gotten our power back that soon and it was only because my mother was on the same line and was elderly and lived alone and couldn't get out that the power folks worked on our lines off the road that had many trees on it.
It definitely was an event that anyone who lived through will never forget. The 20 years since haven't done anything to dim the memories of those snowed in days.
God looked after us at that time as we took care of the animals and the kids and I am very thankful for His undying love then and now.
Good Night and God Bless.