Snow, Go Slow

 Snow, Go Slow
    It has been several years since I have been forced to drive on snow covered and icy roads, but a friend and coworker’s rant this morning reminded me of the times that it was necessary to clean off my car and drive to my job at Frick Hospital in Mt. Pleasant, Pennsylvania. She complained about having only one way to her home and that was a long hill. Taking her son to school this morning on untreated roads, she encountered a driver that stopped part way up the hill and wasn’t moving. She paused to thank the road crews for not addressing the icy surface on the beginning of another school day.
    Several other people lined up behind her, until a man in a truck ventured around them all and she soon followed suit, leaving the person in the stopped car behind. My friend lamented that she got her son to school late, which is never good for the child.
    There were so many times driving to work that would have been real nail-biters, needing both hands on my steering wheel. One time the hospital called to see if I could come in because the night shift person had called off. It was a Friday night and I was already scheduled to work the weekend. I agreed, but said if I made it home after the shift, I wouldn’t guarantee that I would be able to make it back to work. The predicted snow amount was very high.
    When my relief came in, I scooted out as quickly as I could. The snow was falling quickly and the roads were becoming worse by the second. Caution and fear were the passwords as I drove cautiously and slowly home. I turned off the main highway of Route 31 I began to encounter drifts of unplowed snow. The crews were having a difficult time keeping the main thoroughfares open so the side roads were almost unattended.
    By the time I reached my home, I was pushing snow with my front bumper and had to stop onn the road at the entrance to my driveway. I had to get a shovel to open an access to my driveway. It was a white knuckle affair.
    The kicker to the story is I was unable to leave my home from that Saturday morning until Sunday night about ten p.m. The highway department came through with a high lift and huge scoop bucket to open the road. I heard that several plow trucks got stuck in the snow as well and had to be rescued during that storm.