Learning to Drive in Snow During a Blizzard
Friday morning, I woke up to panicked phone calls from my parents urging me to drive back to Tennessee immediately. They were afraid that I’d get stuck in Northern Virginia due to the approaching blizzard. What they neglected to mention was that in order to avoid the storm in Alexandria, I’d have to drive through the storm in central Virginia. My internet was down, so I couldn’t check the weather. In hindsight, I should have bothered to turn on TV and not trust my parents for their advice.
I quickly packed, cleaned my apartment and was on the road by noon. I tried thinking ahead about the possibility of driving through snow and loaded my car with extra food, water bottles and blankets. I didn’t have any sand or kitty litter, so I put a heavy box of books and suitcases in my trunk to weigh it down. I always have extra books around.
As a Southerner, I have a deep fear of snow. We don’t get much white stuff in Chattanooga, so I have zero experience driving in it. After living through the freak blizzard of March 1993, I view snow with an awed fear. That storm dumped about 16″ of snow in our yard and shut down the city for more than a week. We lived without electricity the entire time and eventually ran out of water. I don’t know how we would have survived without our camp stove and heater. Snow is pretty and fun to play in for a few hours, but then it should go away.
As I drove south, the counties around DC were proactive and dumping salt on the road. As soon as I got on I-81, all preparation efforts stopped. Not a salt truck or snow plow was seen. Around Lexington, it started snowing heavily and quickly went from annoying to dangerous. By the time I got to Roanoke, traffic was at a standstill due to a wreck. My mom called the local news stations and monitored VDOT’s web site to give me updates.
Snow conditions around Roanoke
Eventually, I got off the interstate at Salem to tank up my car. I noticed that a state highway was clear and seemed to parallel the interstate. I got directions and decided to bypass the wreck and hop back on the interstate 10 miles further south. By this point, there was a couple of inches of snow and ice on the ground and quickly growing dark. The countryside was beautiful, and I felt like I was driving through a Christmas card with decorated farmhouses and snow-covered barns.
I got back on I-81 around Christiansburg and thought the worst was behind me. Then it suddenly went from drivable to awful. Big fluffy flakes were pouring down, and I could barely see the truck I was following. My wipers were so covered in ice that they just smeared water on my windshield. My car was sliding all over the road, and I was barely driving over 10 mph. I pulled off the interstate to clean my windshield and wipers. I didn’t realize how bad it was until I stepped out of my car and sank into a half foot of snow. A nice man at the gas station volunteered to spray my windshield with de-icer, and I added it to my mental list of a much-needed winter driving kit.
Once again, I got back on the interstate. It was now around 7 p.m. and pitch black. I got a few miles further and hit a wall of stalled traffic at the first Wytheville exit. On the radio, a helpful weatherman said that the brunt of the storm was directly over us. Frequent panicked calls to my parents informed me that I-81 was essentially shut down due to a wrecked tractor trailer five miles ahead of me.
Hours started ticking by. Every 30 minutes, I’d turn on my car to warm it up. I would also get out and clean my windshield and knock ice off my tires with a $1.99 flip flop from Wal-Mart. Normally, I pride myself on being prepared for every situation, but I somehow lost my ice scraper since last winter. I also discovered that Honda Accords are insulated rather well and praised God that my car battery had been replaced two weeks earlier. I was also thankful that I grabbed my ancient, down-filled parka and extra blankets.
Around 9 p.m., my dad insisted on getting a hotel room for me. I still hoped that the wreck clear, and I could get through the next 100 miles of snow that night. Dad got one of the last few hotel rooms in the county at a Super 8 and convinced me to give up on getting home that night. Now, the challenge was getting to the hotel, which was only four miles away.
My car was stopped about 500 feet from an exit ramp. I could see a truck stop, and people around me were walking up the ramp to get food and use the restroom. I felt sorry for all the people walking by with small children. I was miserable and freaked out by myself. I can’t imagine getting through this nightmare situation with a baby or small child.
Stuck on I-81 at midnight
The hours ticked by. I tried to tweet, but only every 4th or 5th text message went through. In hindsight, it was an interesting experience. However, sitting there was terrifying. I was alone, stuck on the interstate in the middle of a blizzard and watching the snow accumulate around my car.
Around 10:30 p.m., mom called and said she had reached the state police. The wreck should be cleared in the next 20 minutes and then state troopers would go car to car and help everyone get out. According to the VDOT web site, I-81 was covered in wrecks. Getting home that night would be impossible. I got the address of the hotel and set up directions in my GPS to get there.
Twenty minutes ticked by and nothing. Thirty minutes. An hour. It was looking bad, and admittedly I freaked out. It looked like I would be spending the night on the interstate in my car. I pulled out my pillow and a blanket and tried to settle in. Around 12:30, a snow plow came through and cleared the exit ramp. The truck ahead of me got over and drove up the ramp. I decided to follow. Getting stuck at a truck stop had to be better than being stuck on the interstate.
The parking lot of the truck stop had at least one foot of snow. I was shocked that my car was able to plow through it. I topped off my car and found out that a frontage road cut between I-81 and I-77 and would get me close to the hotel. It had been scraped and was drivable.
I took the road with some apprehension of driving away from the safety of other cars and followed the directions on my GPS. I got closer and closer, but couldn’t find the hotel. I called home to clarify directions, and my dad told me to get back on the interstate. The hotel had mentioned that Garmin directions were always wrong. I got on I-77 and noticed how abandoned it looked. Cars were grouped by exits, and the left lane was completely empty. It looked like a scene from a disaster movie. I found the exit that I needed, but two lanes of stopped traffic blocked it.
It was late, and I was now driving in circles through a blizzard. I was exhausted, scared and upset. Somehow, I ended up at an exit where I re-fuel my car on drives back to DC. I recognized a gas station and stopped for a cup of coffee and directions. The station was packed. It looked like people were hunkering down there for the night. I got directions to drive through downtown Wytheville and reach the hotel.
Once again, I drove through a snow-covered picturesque town. It looked like the set of a Christmas movie with a 1950s style town center, a giant Christmas tree and lots of lights. Had it not been a nightmare scenario, I would have enjoyed the sight.
My GPS was an annoying loop of “recalculating” in polite British tones that made me want to throw through my windshield. It kept directing me to turn down roads that hadn’t been plowed. My dad called again and pulled up Google maps to find my location. From there, he directed me the last two miles to the hotel.
At 1:30 a.m., I pulled up to the Super 8 and walked through a snow drift to check in. Ahead of me, two drunk rednecks were trying to convince the clerk that they had been locked out of their rooms.
“Great.” I thought. “I’m close enough to Tennessee to encounter rednecks, but not close enough to get home tonight.”
I finally got into my room, called home and texted a few people to tell them I was safe and collapsed. This had been one of the worst nights weeks of my life.
The next morning, I woke up to news that DC was being pummeled by the blizzard.
“Good,” I couldn’t help thinking. “Now my friends are getting a taste of what I went through last night.”
By 8:30 a.m., the snow storm already had a Facebook page and a Twitter tag. I wanted to smack everyone complaining about #snOMG. I had been through hell and wanted nothing more than to get to Chattanooga.
My car covered n snow
The hotel had a complimentary breakfast, and I asked other travelers about road conditions. I-81 seemed to be clear, but I-77 was still a mess. I watched small sedans like mine make it out of the parking lot. The hotel provided brooms and snow shovels to help people clear out their cars. I proceeded to clean off my car with a broom and my trusty flip flop.
By the time I finished digging out my car, the snow was mostly slush in the parking lot. I stopped to take pictures, and a man asked me, “Do you really want to remember this?” I laughed and replied, “Some day.”
I got on the road by 11 a.m. and found the roads to be clear. The snow plows that I had looked for earlier were out in force. As I drove the remaining 250 miles, I watched as the snow conditions decreased from blizzard to ice and eventually rain outside of Knoxville. I was so happy to see green trees. I finally got home around 4 p.m. I’ve never been so happy to see my family and get home.
Tags: blizzard, DC, snow, Snowpocalypse, Virginia
January 1st, 2010 at 12:56 pm
Bless your heart. I never would done that.