Reporting Duties

Showing the drifting in the front yard.

My friend, Christy, was right - we could cross country ski over the East fence. 

Why oh why does it always drift so much in front of the garage (where we keep the snow blower and snow plow)

I feel it's my Midwest duty to report on our big blizzard: 

• 17+ inches of snow.
• Winds gusting up to 65 mph - sustained at 25 mph.
• Temperature last evening was a minus 15 - translating to a wind chill of 30 below.
• Most roads are requiring many passes by the snowplows which has slowed opening roads.
• Our country road and the more traveled road to the east are not plowed.
• All but essential response people stayed home/were closed yesterday.
• The local National Guard was activated for storm response. 
• Yesterday and today has been sunny.
• We had no electric outages or damage at our place.  At one time, I noticed Ameren (pubic utility) had over 40,000 outages.  Most were south where freezing rain/ice fell prior to snow.

There's something peaceful about being snowed in (when there are no other problems.)  We are released from outside obligations.  Since they had predicted this storm for days, most people were prepared and used good sense.  Health care providers, police and emergency response workers all stepped up and assumed a work load beyond their regular schedules.  Isn't that just the way it is here in the Midwest!