The Perfect Storm
It's 6:30am and I am, unfortunately, awake.
Normally, I would be hitting the snooze button and rolling over, but this morning, I felt compelled to check the weather report and see if I'd been snowed in.
It all started yesterday morning. A blizzard of uncommon proportions had taken over the city (and most of north western Canada from what it sounds like on the radio) and instead of walking, my roomies and I decided to walk to school.
The roads were treacherous but manageable and we got there 15 minutes later than we would have (it takes 5 minutes for us to drive to school). About ten people in my class hadn't bothered showing up at all.
Classes went as usual with me falling asleep in almost all of them despite having had a tea and a giant coffee. At one point, my large animal medicine professor took it upon himself to walk up the sides of the lecture theatre to the row where I was sitting and stand practically beside me and lecture. I guess he didn't realise that if a girl's tired, she's tired. No use lecturing in her ear.
Nothing personal to him. Just your basic case of running low on fuel. He didn't see it that way.
Being poor deprived vet students, we aren't given a window to the outside world in our building and it was during my fifth lecture of the day that I saw my reproduction/theriogenolgy professor come into the classroom and talking frantically to a bunch of ppl.
The message got passed down the row. All our cow rectal labs were cancelled for the rest of the day. There was a blizzard outside and if we didn't leave the school NOW, we were going to get snowed in.
I thought it was a joke. Then I talked to several other people who had just checked their e-mails.
The president of our university had given the go ahead to shut down the entire campus and send all students and staff home.
Mass panic ensued. I ran around looking for my roommate. On my way, I passed one of the few windows in the vet college and gasped. It was a complete white out. I checked the entire building for my roomie and she was no where to be found. I passed a group of my classmates freaking out in the buffeteria.
The buses all stopped running and in an hour, 20,000ppl were expected to clear the campus. A report came in that the main road heading north of campus had been blocked by a stuck semi. I decided to take my chances and just walk home (despite the -35oC out there) and as I was putting on my toque, some more sensible ppl talked to me and told me I was crazy.
Several people offered me rides but basically told me that they could only get me as far as about a 15 minute walk from my house cus all the roads were closed. They said I should bring something to prepare for if we get stuck in the car and have to spend the night in it.
At that point, my roomie's husband showed up. He works across the street in the Agriculture department and said that they had all been evacuated too. We began the search for his wife with no luck. We decided to split up and meet back in the buff in fifteen minutes. I searched throguh each room systematically to no avail. I did, however, find Smelly kid asleep in the study room. I held my breath, nudged him awake with a pen and told him the news.
I guess he'd been asleep in there for two hours and had missed the announcement and mass pandemonium.
I also found a girl from first year who was calmly eating her yogurt. "You do realise that if you dont' leave now, you won't get home right?" I asked her.
She paled. "But, but! I'm in the terminal labs today!"
The first years were in a terminal lab which had started an hour before in which dogs were being put under anaesthesia and a number of physiology procedures were being demonstrated in them before a lethal injection was to be administered. The procedures were such that the dog was not meant to survive and once started, you had to see it through to the end as the dogs could NOT be recovered.
The labs usually ran from 11am till 6pm.
I wished her luck and kept my search for my roomie.
Eventually, we found her and we started the treacherous journey home, offering Smelly kid a ride along the way.
Outside, the wind blasted snow up my nose and into my ears. It felt just as nasty as it looked and i was glad I hadn't tried to walk home. Later on, we would hear radio reports of two people who had died in an attempt to walk home from their stranded car at about 1:30pm.
We left the school at 2:15pm and what should have taken about 10 minutes total, took us TWO HOURS. Some people were stranded for 6 hours so I guess we were lucky.
At some points, the visibility was literally 2 m and a parked car or tail lights would suddenly appear out of the whiteness.
As we drove past where the Dairy Queen should have been (but instead was a giant snow-covered building resembling the DQ), I couldn't resist asking, "Blizzard anyone?"
"Not funny Vivian. Not funny."
We made it home with a giant snow drift as high as the railing on our front porch greeting us. Our recycling boxes which we had left out that morning to be picked up in good faith were strewn across the lawn and buried in the snow. The wind howled and we made it to the door where even Lola seemed hesistant to do her usual attempt at escape through the front door.
The rest of the night, the wind howled and blew. The temperature dropped even more, but the snowing had stopped.
And having just checked the weather report and the university website, it would appear that . . . SCHOOL IS STILL OPEN.
&#@&%#!!!!!!!!!!
Well, here goes nothing.
Blizzard anyone?
Normally, I would be hitting the snooze button and rolling over, but this morning, I felt compelled to check the weather report and see if I'd been snowed in.
It all started yesterday morning. A blizzard of uncommon proportions had taken over the city (and most of north western Canada from what it sounds like on the radio) and instead of walking, my roomies and I decided to walk to school.
The roads were treacherous but manageable and we got there 15 minutes later than we would have (it takes 5 minutes for us to drive to school). About ten people in my class hadn't bothered showing up at all.
Classes went as usual with me falling asleep in almost all of them despite having had a tea and a giant coffee. At one point, my large animal medicine professor took it upon himself to walk up the sides of the lecture theatre to the row where I was sitting and stand practically beside me and lecture. I guess he didn't realise that if a girl's tired, she's tired. No use lecturing in her ear.
Nothing personal to him. Just your basic case of running low on fuel. He didn't see it that way.
Being poor deprived vet students, we aren't given a window to the outside world in our building and it was during my fifth lecture of the day that I saw my reproduction/theriogenolgy professor come into the classroom and talking frantically to a bunch of ppl.
The message got passed down the row. All our cow rectal labs were cancelled for the rest of the day. There was a blizzard outside and if we didn't leave the school NOW, we were going to get snowed in.
I thought it was a joke. Then I talked to several other people who had just checked their e-mails.
The president of our university had given the go ahead to shut down the entire campus and send all students and staff home.
Mass panic ensued. I ran around looking for my roommate. On my way, I passed one of the few windows in the vet college and gasped. It was a complete white out. I checked the entire building for my roomie and she was no where to be found. I passed a group of my classmates freaking out in the buffeteria.
The buses all stopped running and in an hour, 20,000ppl were expected to clear the campus. A report came in that the main road heading north of campus had been blocked by a stuck semi. I decided to take my chances and just walk home (despite the -35oC out there) and as I was putting on my toque, some more sensible ppl talked to me and told me I was crazy.
Several people offered me rides but basically told me that they could only get me as far as about a 15 minute walk from my house cus all the roads were closed. They said I should bring something to prepare for if we get stuck in the car and have to spend the night in it.
At that point, my roomie's husband showed up. He works across the street in the Agriculture department and said that they had all been evacuated too. We began the search for his wife with no luck. We decided to split up and meet back in the buff in fifteen minutes. I searched throguh each room systematically to no avail. I did, however, find Smelly kid asleep in the study room. I held my breath, nudged him awake with a pen and told him the news.
I guess he'd been asleep in there for two hours and had missed the announcement and mass pandemonium.
I also found a girl from first year who was calmly eating her yogurt. "You do realise that if you dont' leave now, you won't get home right?" I asked her.
She paled. "But, but! I'm in the terminal labs today!"
The first years were in a terminal lab which had started an hour before in which dogs were being put under anaesthesia and a number of physiology procedures were being demonstrated in them before a lethal injection was to be administered. The procedures were such that the dog was not meant to survive and once started, you had to see it through to the end as the dogs could NOT be recovered.
The labs usually ran from 11am till 6pm.
I wished her luck and kept my search for my roomie.
Eventually, we found her and we started the treacherous journey home, offering Smelly kid a ride along the way.
Outside, the wind blasted snow up my nose and into my ears. It felt just as nasty as it looked and i was glad I hadn't tried to walk home. Later on, we would hear radio reports of two people who had died in an attempt to walk home from their stranded car at about 1:30pm.
We left the school at 2:15pm and what should have taken about 10 minutes total, took us TWO HOURS. Some people were stranded for 6 hours so I guess we were lucky.
At some points, the visibility was literally 2 m and a parked car or tail lights would suddenly appear out of the whiteness.
As we drove past where the Dairy Queen should have been (but instead was a giant snow-covered building resembling the DQ), I couldn't resist asking, "Blizzard anyone?"
"Not funny Vivian. Not funny."
We made it home with a giant snow drift as high as the railing on our front porch greeting us. Our recycling boxes which we had left out that morning to be picked up in good faith were strewn across the lawn and buried in the snow. The wind howled and we made it to the door where even Lola seemed hesistant to do her usual attempt at escape through the front door.
The rest of the night, the wind howled and blew. The temperature dropped even more, but the snowing had stopped.
And having just checked the weather report and the university website, it would appear that . . . SCHOOL IS STILL OPEN.
&#@&%#!!!!!!!!!!
Well, here goes nothing.
Blizzard anyone?
posted by Viv at 6:35 a.m.
2 Comments:
Howdy,
Yup it hit the rest of Western Canada as well. But, Edmonton got the least of it compared to the rest. Although I could do without the -30. Just whatever you do, don't leave your car and walk a great distance and freeze to death on the way. Sask. people, jeez.
WTF? The moment I leave Canada we get all the good weather!
I miss blizzards, dammit!!
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