Cold Weather Stories

[Captain Kidd]

The blizzard of 1966, Washington DC.  The temperature that day was in the single digits, and wind in the teens.  The work resetting the over currents and operating the breakers was done without gloves, and that warm truck was very welcome.

There was sledding, a bonfire, and hot chocolate again that night!  

Single digits, wind chill, no gloves!!!

I'm sure you made a lot of people happy.

[Brian N.]

Krusen - Great memory. I was a fairly clueless 9 YO boy in 1966, and I don't recall much from that winter except constructing a snow fort with friends. We also had a Huskey-Belgium Shepard mix dog which was near the 100 pound mark for sure. We had the crazy idea of letting the dog pull our Radio Flyer sled and attached his leash to a long rope. Needless to say the dog had other ideas, especially about going forward and licking our faces.

[Krusen]

I'm sure you made a lot of people happy.

That is an understatement, as those homes were hours from frozen pipes and the ensuing  huge repair bills.  With that happening, they would have had to find other places to live until repairs were made.

With the roads in that community unplowed for days, getting out would have been difficult and dangerous.

We did have gloves, and wore them while shoveling snow, but in order to make the changes in the settings, I needed to be dexterous, so went to the truck to warm my hands between the individual feeders.  We never considered turning off the engine, as even a short time without the heater would have lost a lot of temperature, and it would have been slow to recover.  The truck radio was our only communications with the engineer who was doing the calculations for setting changes.



On human nature, PEPCO received many complaints for the loss of service, and none for the restoration during difficult times.

The shop foreman, on the other hand was very clear of his appreciation of the save that I had performed.  Thereafter, he considered me to be his best "Snow driver", not necessarily a good title to have.

That substation was soon replaced with one that had 4 times the capacity, and expandable to 16 times, in anticipation of continuing growth along that highway.

[Wolverine]

I grew up in northern Illinois where cold snowy winters were the norm.  We lived in a small far west suburb of Chicago with many hills and no plows at that time.  The residents would shovel the streets in front of their houses.  Every snow storm my dad would comment on those living on a corner. In '68 or '69 we had a big snow storm. Don't remember the year, but remember not having school for several days and the drifts were higher than the 4' chain-link fence around our yard. 
    I was married and living in an apartment when the 2nd large storm hit in January of '79.  In the morning I couldn't find my car.  I had parked next to the building and the snow had completely covered it.  It took me hours to dig it out.  The news channels needed something to get our attention so they concentrated on a single warehouse and the cave in of it's roof due to heavy snow. My brother in law and I were laid off at the time and Insurance companies paid us big money to clean the snow from roofs.  We did homes, businesses and entire apartment complexes.  I was 19 and making $750 to $1300 a week shoveling snow.
    Number 3 hit in January 1999. I had just started at the Illinois Department of Corrections.  The snow started the morning the bus took us to the academy 2 1/2 hours south.  We were late and the instructors took it out on us.  They had us doing pushups and marching in the heavy snow until a cadet fell and broke her leg.
    The last big storm I can remember was around 2009.  I brought 3 uniforms and enough food for 3 days to work.  I worked in the armory at the time and we were snowed in for 4 days.  The county lost 2 plows that got stuck, so all the roads were closed.  After 88 hours at work, the roads had been cleared.  Officers started arriving and relieving us, but we were told to be back for our regular shift in 8 hours.  4 officers feel asleep on their way home and drove into ditches.  Most of us returned for our shift, but some took the write ups.  I arrived home to find my neighbor had cleared my drive. 
     Now retired and living in North Carolina, I didn't expect to see 6" of snow Wednesday morning.

You cannot view this attachment.     

[Norm L.]

What a great tale. Living up north I can remember some snow adventures although not to the degree in your story.
My favorite line might be... I hoped that we would not meet the plow coming back.

My college roommate, after a few years at sea, lived in a rural part of Maine. He bought an Army surplus jeep for fun and also a plow system that fit it. During the winter instead of being the good neighbor who would shovel sidewalks, was the one who would plow all of the country lanes in the area so that once they could get out of their driveways they had access to one of the county main roads.
He loved working equipment and became quite involved restoring old trucks and being on the board of a New England region club of antique truck collectors.

[noelH]

Not much of story.  Reality of living in Lake Effect snow country.
 
Yesterday, finally needed to hitch up the 60" Loftness snowblower to the back of the tractor.  Has been sitting on the pallet since Spring of '23.  Snow drought and too many very warm days (aka rain v. snow) kept the snowpack low last year.  No need for the snowblower. Snowbanks never really built up high enough where just blade was able to remove the snow.  This winter was trending similar. But then a couple light for us Lake Effect snowfalls resulted in moderate snowbanks from plowing.  Was going to just plow the previous ~6"/15cm, but the not forecasted Lake Effect the evening prior made that option not the best choice.

All was fine until I needed to attach the telescopic connector that has a universal at each end. Bit of a pain. Heavy and awkward sometimes.  This time just a moment or two. Then realized and sort of remembered the shear pin at the PTO end was sheared. Usually you just drop the remaining piece out or at worst sort of pry it out.  Not this time. Could not rotate the two parts due to enough of a barb of metal. Out comes the impact hammer. Thing is really stuck. Removed and put on the garage workbench to "DrillBabyDrill out the stuck chunk of pin. To the house. Cannot find the 5/16" size cobalt bit. 3/16" or smaller.  Walking back to the garage it dropped out of my pocket. Walked back to the house following my bootprints in the new ~6"/15cm of overnight not forecasted snowfall. Got lucky. Saw the trail the dropped bit made in the snow.  Took a look at my collection of shear pins needed for the blower. Only one 5/16 x 1" left.  And the wrong grade. Life. Installed. Attached the hardware. Too long a driveway during the winter months. Another hour later I was finally done clearing the snow.

Had to return some Library material today.  Double dip trip. Stopped by the hardware store to pick up a few 5/16 x 1 " shear pins and a 1/4" Cobalt drill bit. It's a guarantee that I will find the 5/16" bit or maybe I needed to buy a 5/16" for the lost one to appear? Usually if I have a handful of shear pins they don't break. 

Then there was the time the ROPS hit the bottom of the garage door that I didn't open completely to the top discombobulating the torsion bar spring. Resetting a torsion bar spring is no fun after snowplowing in single digit F temps for an hour or so. Actually just resetting a torsion bar spring is just no FUN.

[noelH]

Thought just hit the old brain. How amount of snowfall is so relevant to where you live. IIRC, the news noted New Orleans received 8" of snowfall?  Probably shut down the city.  Up here unless the winds are blizzard hard. Nothing shuts down until snowfall amounts are measured in feet. Then there is the UP. Yoopoors think we are wimps. Deep snowfall for them is when you open your door of your home and all you see is a white wall.  Reason why they have giant snowblowers instead of snowplows on many of their trucks.

[Wayne Howard]

Y'all have put me to shame. My cold weather story is nothing close to anything already posted. But here goes.

Winter of 2008 or so. I had taken my motorcycle to the shop on a nice day to have the front bearings replaced. We were living in an apartment at the time so I didn't have the necessary tools to do it myself. Plus the complex frowned on working vehicles in the parking lot. When it was ready, I had coworker drop me off at the shop Which was 25 miles from the apartment. It was rather cool at 33 degrees F so I had my insulated coveralls and ski gloves in addition to my full face helmet. Overcast and looking dreary. Just as I get on the freeway, the rain/drizzle starts and I have 25 miles to go to get to the apartment. By the time I got home I had realized the nothing I had on was waterproof and the windchill at 65 mph SUCKS!

Got to the apartment and took a nice warm shower for longer than I usually would before I felt like I was thawed out. Drove the truck to work for the next several days.

[Krusen]

Then the snow started drifting bad.  1979

There was a major destructive failure of the shaft mounted exciter of a 500 MILLION watt generator.  I was scheduled to do routine work there that day, and was assigned to do the project of replacing it with a temporary all solid state unit on a 2 axle tractor trailer.

A blizzard started that day, and I elected to stay, as the prediction implied that I could not get back the next morning.

The best thing that happened was that one of the foremen called the plant superintendent from a small country grocery, told him he expected the worst, and was bringing a personal supply of food, did the superintendent want some too?
The answer was "I believe you carry a fairly large amount of money?  Buy groceries until you run out of money."
He bought half the bread, all the eggs, most of the bacon, half the lunch meat and cheese, all the rolled oats, most of the spaghetti and sauce, all the ground beef, most of the dry beans, all colors, catsup, mustard, hot sauce, butter, Bisquick, pancake mix, syrup,...................

The next day, all highways were impassible, snow continued, and drifted.  The control room kitchen served bacon, eggs, and toast, coffee and juice to all of the men in the plant.
Lunch, sandwiches and coffee.
Supper spaghetti with meatballs, and salad.
Meals continued 24 hours a day, and were good.

The evening of the first day, the tractor trailer from Pittsburg arrived, the tractor immediately left for home, as the snow was a foot deep many places on the highway, and he feared getting stuck on the way.  The trailer was hoisted to the turbine deck, near the destroyed exciter, and I removed the instruction book and prints.
The turbine deck floor was snow covered half way across, as the combustion air is heated by exhaust steam from the turbine, and the vents cannot be closed.  Wind was about 30 MPH.  Since due to both the cold weather and the loss of the largest generator on our system, all steam was going through the power turbine of the second generator, not heating the plant.  Air temp at our end was in the 20s.

The 6 PM to 7 AM shift partially arrived, and we settled in as a 6 man team, instead of two 4 man teams.  Fortunately, the best of each team were present.  The other top guy and myself sat at the print table with the trailer prints and made a list of all input and output cables required, and the sizes.  Next, from plant prints, found the other ends, and made a list for the electrical shop to obtain and pull all those cables.  Then we split, 2 crews started removing existing connections and marking them, the other lead man went to the electric shop and planned how each new cable would be installed.  I settled in with the factory instructions for the solid state exciter, learning how it worked, how we should test it to see if it was damaged in transit, and calibrating it to our system needs.
By then, it was morning, more snow was still blowing onto the turbine deck, and the cleaning crew had squeegeed it from the near side where we walked, and salted to prevent ice forming.  The shop built a plywood platform beside the trailer so we could set up our test equipment, and by afternoon, we had power to start testing.  Through that night and the next day, we learned how to connect our test equipment verified no damage and started custom calibration for our plant.
A two tier food system was in place that day, some of us were still bacon, eggs, toast, others were pancakes, butter, and syrup. Later meals were either chili, or spaghetti and meatballs.
The next day, breakfast was rolled oats for all, and during the day, more oats plus fried Spam.
30 men, working hard, 24 hours a day, eat a lot of food.  Many thanks for the plant manager saying "Spend all the money you have".
The morning of the 4th day, the plant manager had a complaint that the men were out of change for the many coin machines in the contractor lunch room, and the machine shop was instructed to cut all the padlocks off the machines, the contents were free.
My men and I were still being fed in the control room, but most of the crews were not, except for unlimited oats all day and night.
The mechanics had finished installing the slip rings and brushes hours ago, and the shaft was on turning gear to prepare for start.  Near daybreak, we advised the plant manager we would soon be ready, and he ordered the boilers starting to heat up.  When he had steam, we were ready, all systems tested, and the operators trained on the new controls for the exciter.
Mid morning, the generator went on line, ramped smoothly up to half load, online tests were made to verify that the various limits worked, and we approved full load.
The blizzard and following strong winds with well below freezing temperatures all over the east coast created a severe strain on the power generating capacity, and even the most inefficient equipment was on line.  Our unit was one of the 10 most efficient units in the whole country.  We had a planned time to repair of 7 days, 24 hours a day, so when we returned early, we made the high rate for the next 3 ½ days, a relative fortune.  The bid rate was about 3 times our actual cost, and the plant made more net profit in 3 ½ days than in a normal 3 months.

An hour after we reached full load, the first snow plow went by the plant entrance.
2 hours after that, I went home, and found that my wife, oldest son, and the neighbors had finally succeeded in shoveling out the court, and I drove into our driveway, first incoming car.  The neighbors had all gone out for food, and were not back yet.
Shirley asked if I was hungry...NOPE... I am taking a shower and going to bed!

I did not turn on my alarm clock, and when I woke, I called in, saying "This is Norman, I am not coming to work", and the foreman said "That's fine"
Next day was a repeat, and the third day, I went to work.
A week after the blizzard struck, streets were still a mess, not all lanes open, and icy spots everywhere.  The salt supply was all used up.

Fun wise, the kids made igloos, forts, and had epic snow ball fights.  After the street was dug out, sled riding became possible again, as the snow was only removed to about 6 inches deep.  That snow lasted forever.

The plant superintendent was in the plant the whole time, saw us hard at work at all hours, and knew what we and the other employees had accomplished.  He gave all his men a week of paid leave, any time they wanted it.  My boss was home most of that 3 ½ days on snow days off, and felt that I was way overpaid for those overtime hours, nearly all at double time, out of HIS budget, and refused the managers request that we also receive a week of paid time off.  I fairness, none of the plants profits went into his budget.

The plant manager reported a problem on some of our equipment, and told the gate guard to send me straight to his office.  There, he apologized for failing to get me a week off, and offered me a custom belt buckle.  He explained that he awarded one buckle a year to the employee who had done the most to increase the profitability of the plant each year, Norman, you earned it.  Wear it with pride, the employees who see it will ask how you have one, as you are not an employee of the plant.  Just tell them you were here for the blizzard, and they will know you earned it the hard way.

As I type this, I am wearing my favorite buckle, with the image of that plant on it.  Worth a week's pay, in pride of ownership.  46 years ago, 1979

[Captain Kidd]

As I type this, I am wearing my favorite buckle, with the image of that plant on it.  Worth a week's pay, in pride of ownership.

Norm, you've certainly got the tales! Most of us may have an idea of what you guys go/have gone through, but probably aren't appreciative enough. Weather certainly affects the power grid!

A hearty, howbeit belated, thank you!

Wonder what year that was?

[Norm L.]

This long, fantastic thread dealt with rough water. In the form of white fluffy frozen water.

What great tales of pasts full of challenges and victories.

I guess I can add that as a pre-teen the challenge and victory was to stand at a corner with a stop sign.
When the car pulled away across the snow-covered streets one would squat behind the car. While holding on to the rear bumper we would enjoy skiing along on our rubber snow boots.
Happily, it was rare when the car, at 15-20 mph, ran over a street manhole cover. The underground warmth and sun heat would sometime melt away the snow coverage. The rubber boots hitting a no-snow spot would immediately halt the bottom half of your body.
No one that I knew, and occasionally "skied" with, ended up in the hospital.  But occasionally ended up with parent provided pain at home.

[Krusen]

Added the year for Captain Kidd, 1979, 46 years ago.

My stories of snow are strongly biased to work stories, as my department at the power company had no snow days, and the wild adventures took place at work.

One of my first was a severe ice storm that took down many hundreds of power lines, and I was working alone, we needed more men in stations than we had men............

Fortunately, that was about 75 years ago, and I have forgotten most of it.

Unforgettable, though, was going to a 4,000 volt substation, and reclosing feeders that the dispatcher specified, all tripped back out, and I left for the next station.  Just a few blocks way, I came upon an overhead crew splicing a feeder that was one that I had closed in.  With some misgivings, I stopped and apologized, and was surprised the lead men said they noticed the ground cables jump, but they never started work without those grounds, in case of dispatchers forgetting what they were doing.

That part I will never forget.  Always allow for other peoples mistakes.

[Noemi - Ensenada 20]

As an aside, I spent the summer of '76 in Kalamazoo doing something like an internship at Green Meadow Bible Church. .

That was the summer just before I moved there for college.  I loved Kazoo.

[Noemi - Ensenada 20]

Then there was the winter when it snowed, warmed up, cooled down, and snowed again.  Our back yard was full of snow-covered ice that to my memory was smooth all over.  We shoveled paths, skated the paths, shoveled more, skated, until the whole yard was one big ice rink. 

So much fun!

[Riley Smith]

 So Rob and I were working for Dr. Dave in the project crew. Working for Dr. Dave was pretty much like a prison sentence. Everyone hated him, even me, and I'd cut those supervisor tyrants a lot of slack because I understood that we were all in it together. I was close friends with many of them.
 That wasn't the world that Dr. Dave lived in. Dave was in a class of his own. For one thing, he was a total idiot that didn't trust anyone. He looked at the world like someone was out to get him every single second he was alive. And on top of that he wasn't very smart. And third, he cared very little about you or your well-being. Added up, nobody could figure out WHY he was supervisor and the rumor was that he had some incriminating pictures of someone. Personally, I figured they made him Supervisor and hired someone that was actually capable of producing. In today's world he'd be the source of litigation. He got his "Doctor" name by making disparaging remarks about someone's medical problems.
  And then to add misery to an already gloomy existence, it was cloudy, dreary, and cold. Not your immediate life or death cold, but that damp Mississippi cold, 30 deg F with a wind out of the north at 30 mph. The flu was going around too, and almost everyone was sick with something.
 Now, the project crew did all sorts of things and was first on the list for emergency work. Shutdowns and overtime were the norm; critical paths and thorny problems. Stuff that required trust and skill between the participants, because you could get dead really easy. One thing overlooked could be catastrophic. Our overall job was to play with fire in a gasoline plant. So, yes, Dave was hated because he didn't trust anyone, and nobody trusted him.
 In between shutdowns, we'd go here and there in the huge facility and solve this or that problem. In practice, it was like a miniature construction company integrated into the business. Word came from on high about this job and that, and we reacted and interacted. We knew the everybody in the oil refinery and worked alongside almost everyone. I always thought it was like the Marines in a lot of ways. Management looked upon us as a necessary evil but we saved them countless times.
 On this cold and drafty morning Rob and I drew the short straws. Others in the crew went somewhere else, maybe to the shops to build something. With a truck and inside, out of the wind. Somewhere warm. Rob and I were escorted by Dr. Dave the wharf pipeline and delivered to our job and then he drove away. There wasn't a single thing between us and the wind off the North Pole except the elevated pipes about chest high. Out in the middle of nowhere with nothing around. We had a patch to weld on and everything was on site.
 Rob was a black guy and he and I hired in together. He was a mild, soft-spoken guy, with quiet manners and really just a decent human being. And he hated cold weather. In a short time, like thirty minutes, we  were COLD. The wind was stealing every tiny bit of our heat and burrowing deep down in all the layers of clothes we had on. We had come prepared because we weren't green worms, but that wind was like a straight razor. We realized that the only way out was to finish and there wasn't much talking because we knew we had to get the patch welded in and get out of that wind. It was miserable.
 We were wearing every  we had and it still didn't stop the wind. My mouth grew numb. In a different situation, we would have worn rain suits over everything, because they're good for breaking the wind and trapping heat. Rain suits and welding don't mix well though. And we already had so many clothes on it was difficult to get into positions over and under the pipes.
 Someone came and got us at 9am break. It took all I had to go back out into that wind when break was over. A different Supervisor would have built us a "hooch" to keep the wind off us but I'm sure that never entered Dave's mind. That was one of the most miserable days I've ever lived. It seemed it would never end and I looked at Rob once and said, "If I look like you, we are two sorry examples of humanity."
 He said, "Man, I'm as cold as I've ever been in my life."  with nose running and shivering like a dog trying to pass a peach seed. He had on an old army ski mask and just looked like one of the Cosby kids. We were a sorry and very cold sight. Coldest day ever.
 I saw Rob recently in WalMart; the gathering place where you see all your old work buddies in this town. It was good seeing him and he looked good. He is a few years older than me. His face lit up when he spotted me and we shook hands and gabbed a little. Deep down in both of our psyches was that day and what we'd been through together. I was very happy to lay eyes on him once again, and happy he was doing as well as us old codgers can. Yes, there is a deep bond between all of us. We've worked together when the SHTF. Well, most of us.
 I don't know if Dave is still alive and I don't care.