Blown Away. -- NOT

No one is going to tell me there wasn't a tornado connected with this storm. I woke up to my trailer rocking as if on rockers like a cradle. Then it levitated just a few seconds (think hill-hopping). THEN all hell broke loose. Wind, hail, driving rain, first this direction, then that. I couldn't see next door. I couldn't see Tammy's. I heard aluminum. In between roaring winds. Not a freight train, but close enough to a team of mack trucks coming in off 68.Through the yard.



Texted Tammy to get in her shower. she was texting me to get in my bathtub. Or something. Her door steps were knocked over. My glider is knocked over. One swing on the kids "swing set" is twisted and wrapped around bars. THe little slide is almost to my back porch. small toys scattered everywhere.

next door

Our two trailers suffered little damage that we can see. Some loose or collapsed skirting.

 the fence that isnt there

Trailer on the other side had siding peeled off, top and bottom. The six foot privacy fence between yards on 68 and trailer park is flattened. Trees are broken everywhere.


12 hours later we are still out of power.

We have been so very lucky.

Is "Snow Emergency" Legally Valid?

We're in the grip of our first snow emergency of the 2013-2014 winter. Winter Storm Cleon. With Dion already following closely.

Now, this isn't about what makes a snow emergency in any specific place. Minnesota and North Dakota would probably laugh at what Cincinnati calls an emergency.Maybe even at what they would call a significant snowfall.

But, the fact is, Cincinnati communities are calling snow emergencies of various levels.

Big whooping deal. It means, for the most part, that communities can write tickets and write off damage to cars parked on the streets.

They say not to go out unless absolutely necessary.
But who decides what is necessary?

I can tell you who does NOT decide.
Service industry workers. They have to go to work or lose their jobs.
The owners of various businesses don't care much if the police say don't go out.
The police don't care much, either. If you are driving slowly and carefully, they aren't likely to chase you down and possibly cause an accident, as well as keeping you both out when you could be getting in somewhere.
But the gas stations HAVE to stay open.
McDonald's MUST stay open.
Facilities such as hospitals and nursing homes, by their very nature, need to stay open. But must they insist on workers coming in in a "snow emergency"?
(I don't know what they could do instead. They should work up snow emergency protocols. Reduced staff, maybe sleep-breaks for people who will remain instead of go out I believe some hospitals do do that.)

Not only do these businesses insist on insisting, they punish those who don't risk life and limb to serve coffee to idiots. (Road personnel excepted from this category.) They write them up(disciplinary action); they brand them as unreliable; they reduce their hours; they even fire them.
They do not pay the fines for tickets received.
They do not pay for damages caused by an accident when their employees should never have been on the road in the first place.
They do not compensate for extra gas burned in longer, slower drives.
They don't pay hospital bills for slip and slide crashes.
They do NOT pay for funerals.

It's not just the service industry. There are factories with this same mindset. Never mind that their product is nonessential -- they have quotas that must be met, come hell or high water. (Hell or high snowdrifts?) The work must be done.

No mere employee can protest any of these disciplinary actions by pleading a snow emergency. The designation has no standing in labor law.

So, a "Snow Emergency" is a money maker for the municipality.
A "Snow Emergency" is an out for insurance companies, who will not pay (easily) for an accident caused when the driver wasn't supposed to be driving.
A "Snow Emergency" is no reason to not go out; thus says American Industry.

So, I ask you, why bother.
Why bother?

Weather Winter

What a crazy few days it has been with the weather.
Temps were near or at 70 over the weekend.  Today I don't think we got out of the forties.

Terrible storms Sunday night, just terrible.
Not as bad, here, as it was west of us. Here, we had a few doppler-indicated tornadoes, and there were a few hysterics who saw funnel clouds in the pitch dark and through pouring rain.
In Illinois and Indiana, there were real, visible, man-eating home-wrecking horrific tornadoes. The destruction is -- there are no words.
One air view of the path, you can see that there were several lottle twisters from one storm cloud/ base, whatever you call it. Like massaging fingers from a massive hand, reaching, seeking, pinching, squashing.

Here we had lots of strong winds and heavy rain.

And Tammy and her babies live in a trailer in a trailer park. I had taken Hailey home not many hours earlier.
I was worried about them, as always, but it seemed there was even less than usual to do. I turned the tvs on weather channels and local channels, and kept an eye on the approaching storm, by going in and out on the porch.
But I was afraid in the Old Way, of the storms that I can't stop and can't do anything about.
Who knew Rex sitting in his chair telling me to stay inside was such a fear diffuser? I missed him so, when I wasn't being a quaking coward.
And sometimes even when I was.

Now it is cold, and getting colder. True winter temperatures are supposed to arrive over the next few days, with snow on or by the weekend. We've already had one ground covering snowfall, and a brief cold snap.

And in between these winter weather advance-and-retreat maneuvers, my precious rosebush is sporting a bud from a died-back limb. A perfect teardrop of a rosebud, where there was no green or no growth, and where the very weather itself was against anything growing, let alone blooming.

Even as  winter comes, there can be a flowering.
Even then.