Did someone say "snow day"?

I just got in from two hours of digging out my laneway during our current snow storm, although I guess over the years since coming to Canada there have been a few.  What makes this one so “special” is that for the last three years we’ve had little to no snow in the city.   Now out of nowhere we have a years worth of snow all in one day – I mean really? 

I was in both Philadelphia and Chicago earlier this week for business, and it wasn’t until I was in my hotel in Chicago for my early morning meeting (yes, that would be a 6:30 am meeting - who does that?) that I noticed the storm advisory on the morning news.   Hhhmmm, I made a mental note to keep an eye on that and to see if I could get to the airport as soon as my meetings were over - pronto!

Chicago looked like it was in for freezing rain most of the morning, with an additional 2 to 4 inches of snow later in the afternoon just to make it interesting...  If you’ve ever been to Chicago’s O’Hare airport (one of the busiest in the world) you’ll know that it doesn’t take too much for flights to get cancelled and once that begins it really does spiral out of control.

Back deck accumulations - and still
snowing!

I checked in for my flight around 8:20 am in the hopes of flying standby on the 9:00 am flight back to Toronto, I was currently booked on the 11:00 am but as I approached the desk I noticed that the later flights were already beginning to be cancelled – especially to Toronto.

However, the flying gods were with me and not only did I get a seat on the 9:00 am flight but also upgraded….score!

I arrived back into Toronto around noon after a slight delay, got directly into my taxi and headed to the office which is in the north end of the city.  As the workday started to wind down, I looked out the window and was confronted with two stark realizations - firstly, the snow had been falling for a couple of hours and looking outside it was almost complete “white out” conditions (not good at all), this was punctuated by a long line of red tail lights snaking its way out of the business park (infinitely worse!).    

Normally its about a 30 minute drive from my place to the office, but tonight was going to be a true test of everyone’s patience as the roads were treacherous (both icy and snow covered), minor accidents dotted the roads as drivers tried to stop on the slick roads, only to find themselves sliding and bumping into others, I also noticed a number of abandoned cars with their four way flashers on, the drivers having left them to get help.  All in all - a complete and bloody mess!

Fortunately John (my boss) was adept at driving in this type of weather conditions and that coupled with his Audi S5 Quattro we made it home safely in just less than two hours.   I’d say that was quite a good pace in retrospect!

Private snow-plow driver on my street tonight

By now the snow was really starting to accumulate, with about 6 cm on the ground and more falling but the minute it was clearly going to get much uglier before it got better.

Sami was staying over last night, and she was constantly checking the school website in the hopes that school would be cancelled, she was all about the “snow day” on Friday :-)   This was all well and good, but conflicting news began to filter in from a number of sources – her friends all hopeful that it school would be closed were busily texting one another and scheming about potentially catching a midday movie at a local theatre, Sami then emailed her teacher who confirmed that school was indeed going to be closed the next day,  she now began to celebrate (the little jig around the kitchen was a little over the top I must admit) but literally at the eleventh hour we got word that school was going to stay open and classes as normal.    Sami was not happy with that news I can tell you!

Fortunately I can work from home and when I got up this morning I was greeted by a winters wonderland….and yes, it was still snowing!   There was now about 20 cm on the ground with more snow falling and accumulating by the minute.   

As the day progressed I was checking both the weather channel and the outside conditions but there was clearly no letting up.   I had no other course of action but to call the Tamarack Lodge in Ellicottville (New York State) and cancel our booking for tonight…   As you know, for those following along at home know that we go skiing every weekend.

I was very disappointed but realistically with 275kms between the destination and us and given the weather, the road conditions and the route (skirting both lake Ontario and Lake Erie – all that lake effect snow) it was foolish to even consider.   I texted Zach late in the day to give him the bad news, with the proviso that we would re-evaluate in the morning and make a “game time” decision early saturday morning.

My infamous lane way...yes its narrow!

The albatross hanging over my head all day had been the job of shoveling the back lane way so I could go pick up Zach for his weekend with me.   Easier said than done, particularly given that now the snow had started to blow around with some strong wind gusts.   

In places, like my back deck for example it was anywhere from a foot to two feet deep, depending on the direction of the wind.   After 20 minutes of shoveling my back deck and path to the garage I was now ready to face the 120 feet or so of narrow lane-way, which separated me from the street out front – my god it was going to be a long afternoon and at this rate – indeed perhaps even a long night!

Now the length of the lane coupled with the extreme narrowness (yes, I have to pull my mirrors in to get down it) made it incredibly hard to clear, with really nowhere to throw the snow it made the job exceptionally tough.   

Its times like this that harken back to a bygone era, because as I was struggling deep in the afternoon light, surrounded by the deep blowing and drifting snow three of my neighbors whom I hardly knew, all donned their winter gear, each grabbing their trusty snow shovels and joined me in my quest to clear the lane-way.   

I awkwardly introduced myself to my new cohorts, strangely everyone was smiling but we all agreed that it had been ages since we’d seen snow like this, I guess it transported them back to when they were kids, and literally they wanted to play in the snow again, and this was as close as it got as adults without taking their kids out tobogganing or skiing.  A good bit of exercise for a good cause.

Slowly but surely with four shovels all pushing, and moving the snow we slowly began to make inroads into the voluminous drifts that had filled in the lane to a depth of 50cm in places.    Now think about the actual volume of snow we moved this afternoon – the driveway is 35 meters long, by 2 meters wide by (lets be conservative rather than worry about the drifts) 50 cm in depth on average….yes, we collectively moved approximately 35 cubic meters of snow between the four of us.   Wow!  I mean that’s a lot of snow don’t you think???   

Yes, you could park cars under the drifts

As we finally shoveled the last of the snow onto the large drift that now served as a sentinel to the laneway, we all stood leaning against our shovels, smiling and exhausted, steam lazily drifting from each of us as we stood in the semi darkness, illuminated only by the street light amongst the ever present falling snow…did someone say “snow-mageddon?” 

It was a wonderful moment of gratitude and satisfaction that passed between the four of us in the fading light, not only had we collectively moved a mountain of snow, but we all felt like we’d helped someone in need (yes, that would be me :-).   

Today was an incredible life lesson - this kind and selfless act truly warmed my heart and gave me a sense of community that I've long since felt.