The Blizzard of '96

I can't remember why the budget battle of '95 spilled into '96.  Heck, I can't remember last week sometimes.  But the government did close, and financially it was a bit scary.  I was a single parent without child support and when government employees get furloughed they can't go find another job as stop-gap.  No one will hire someone who might disappear in a day.

But eventually we received word that we were to report back to work on, I believe, a Monday.

I also had heard that we might get some snow overnight, so I decided to go to Mass on Saturday evening rather than deal with potentially slick roads in the morning.  It was very crowded and at some point the celebrant said "So how many folks here really want 2 feet of snow?"  WHAT?!  WHADDAYA MEAN 2 FEET OF SNOW?!  Apparently, the forecast had changed radically since I had last heard it.

So, the obligatory grocery store stop.  As is usual in the DC area, the threat of snow had caused the locusts to descend, but I was able to get enough keep us going for several days.  Including the chocolate cake that sat half hidden on a cart in the back. (Score!)

It snowed.  And it snowed.  And my daughter and I pulled the sleep sofa in the living room out and hunkered down with the TV and books.  It snowed some more.

 

It really wasn't a blizzard - most of the time it didn't meet the white out and wind gust requirements for a blizzard.  It was a nor-easter, but when a nor-easter hits with snow it's a distinction without much of a difference. The mid-Atlantic got hammered.

Yonkers, New York City

Pocahontas County, WV, was buried under 48 inches of snow, the winner in an unpleasant weather lottery.

And the DC metro area came to a complete standstill. 

Needless to say, the government didn't reopen as planned.  In fact, 2 days later we got hit with another storm.  I think it was 2 weeks before we got back to the office.  Since we lived in an apartment complex, we ran out of places to put the snow as we tried to dig our vehicles out.  Each shovel full had to be carried down the street.   It got old really fast.

I suppose you could view what's going on in Congress right now as a storm.  I just would prefer to skip the shoveling this time.