"Pittsburgh will be spared the full blow of this winter storm ..." were the words of the weatherman from the local newscast on Friday as he showed the states and cities that were about to be clobbered by the coming storm to our South.
Fast forward to Saturday morning (a day full of planned activities by the way), when we woke up to find everything covered in white outside. Another weatherperson on the morning news was saying how we should feel lucky we "only got 8-9 cm of snow"since states like Virginia and cities like Washington DC and New York City were expected to get as much as 30 cm from this storm.
Here is what it looked like as I stood on my front porch, looking at my neighborhood (my driveway is at the bottom of the picture and the road goes across the middle of the picture at an angle - see the yellow fire hydrant at the edge of the road).
I walked outside and started shoveling my driveway, trying to clear a path to the street which was still impassable at the time.
The snow was still falling, but I was simply trying to clear-up the majority of the snow at that point.
Soon I heard the rumble of the snow plow going up and down the street, clearing snow and spreading salt behind it.
The street was now navigable and I only needed to clear my driveway to enable us to actually attempt to drive on it.
The closer I got to the end of the driveway, the wetter and heavier the accumulated snow became (partially melted by the salt from the snow plow). Eventually the path was cleared and it was time to clear the sidewalks and the pathway to the front of the house. It took about two hours and the falling snow was starting to turn the areas I had cleared white again. It was time to deploy the salt, which was sprinkled on the the surfaces and started working right away, since it was about -2C, still warm enough for salt to be effective.
This is the view of the end result from the sidewalk (standing by the yellow fire hydrant).
My son Greg had to take his last two final exams at Pitt today (yes, they also give finals on Saturday I found out) and we planned to go pick him up in the afternoon.
Unfortunately each municipality is responsible for snow removal on their streets and others were not as efficient as our own local folks.
Still, my wife employed a slow and steady pace and managed to go to the university and bring him home without any mishaps.
Now we get to sit back and relax, perhaps we might even have a white Christmas...
Fast forward to Saturday morning (a day full of planned activities by the way), when we woke up to find everything covered in white outside. Another weatherperson on the morning news was saying how we should feel lucky we "only got 8-9 cm of snow"since states like Virginia and cities like Washington DC and New York City were expected to get as much as 30 cm from this storm.
Here is what it looked like as I stood on my front porch, looking at my neighborhood (my driveway is at the bottom of the picture and the road goes across the middle of the picture at an angle - see the yellow fire hydrant at the edge of the road).I walked outside and started shoveling my driveway, trying to clear a path to the street which was still impassable at the time.
The snow was still falling, but I was simply trying to clear-up the majority of the snow at that point.
Soon I heard the rumble of the snow plow going up and down the street, clearing snow and spreading salt behind it.
The street was now navigable and I only needed to clear my driveway to enable us to actually attempt to drive on it.
The closer I got to the end of the driveway, the wetter and heavier the accumulated snow became (partially melted by the salt from the snow plow). Eventually the path was cleared and it was time to clear the sidewalks and the pathway to the front of the house. It took about two hours and the falling snow was starting to turn the areas I had cleared white again. It was time to deploy the salt, which was sprinkled on the the surfaces and started working right away, since it was about -2C, still warm enough for salt to be effective.
This is the view of the end result from the sidewalk (standing by the yellow fire hydrant).My son Greg had to take his last two final exams at Pitt today (yes, they also give finals on Saturday I found out) and we planned to go pick him up in the afternoon.
Unfortunately each municipality is responsible for snow removal on their streets and others were not as efficient as our own local folks.
Still, my wife employed a slow and steady pace and managed to go to the university and bring him home without any mishaps.
Now we get to sit back and relax, perhaps we might even have a white Christmas...
