posted on Dec, 19 2010 @ 03:13 PM
It's been like that up here in the sticks of West Virginia too tater. I mean just on Thursday we got about eight inches of snow in about four hours
here in the Charleston area. It made for one good old fashioned mess just getting around the area. Funny part about that is the city of Beckley about
fifty miles from me got only an inch or two of snow. I find that quite odd since Beckley is up at around 1,000 feet above sea level. I will say that
being only twenty six years old, I can remember at least four winter seasons that were really bad. First time was the winter of 1985, we had the snow
and the cold temperatures to go with it. From what I remember, it got as cold as ten below zero in the daytime and down to around twenty below at
night. The second bad winter that I've experienced would have to be the winter of 1987. Not for the fact that we received a lot of snow but for two
ice storms that nearly paralyzed the entire state. Just the shear realization that a half inch of ice knocked out the power, made the roads
impassible, closed businesses and schools. This storm itself shut the entire eighty eight mile length of the West Virginia Turnpike down for at least
three days due to car wrecks. I know that for a fact because my dad was responding to one of those wrecks when the fire truck he was in crashed.
I would say that the Blizzard of March 28 - 30, 1993 was bad, but the winter of 1993 had nothing on the winter of 1994. That winter saw one or two
storms that dumped close to two feet of snow on my area both times. Just to give you an idea as to how bad it really was. The state of West Virginia
declared a "State of Emergency" during both storms because the road crews were struggling at best to clear the roads and the emergency services
around here had the utmost difficulty responding to request for help. It did not help in the least bit that these storms also brought about below zero
temperatures like the winter of 1985 did. Then along comes Janurary and Feburary of 1996 and the two huge storms that basically shut down the entire
Eastern Seaboard. If I remember correctly, both storms dropped somewher around three feet here around Charleston. In the eastern part of the state,
some places received over six and a half feet of snow. This would, in turn, become one of the most disastrous floods due to snow melt to have ever hit
West Virginia. The winter of 1995-1996 was the snowiest winter on record here in Charleston with 106.5 inches of snow accumulating.
Last winter started off on a disastrous note for most of us here in West Virginia. It all started on December 18th, one year ago yesterday, when the
snow started to fall and it started to pile up. The rate of intensity with the snow made it almost impossible for anyone to keep up with the snowfall.
At the storms peak, snow was falling at a rate of two inches per hour here in Charleston. This storm would eventually shut down the West Virginia
Turnpike again for only the third time in the road's sixty year history. The first time it was completely shut down was due to the ice storm of 1987.
The second time being due to a tanker truck full of formaldahyde flipping over and leaking its contents all over the road. When the road was shut
down, at least 600 motorists were stuck in their cars for twenty four hours. They were only able to get out when the National Guard came into assist
with getting these people off the road. It wasn't until after this storm that the state installed crossover barriers in the median walls along the
Turnpike. This storm also knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of people here in West Virginia alone. There were some parts of Kanawha County,
where I live, that went without power for a week to ten days. There were some parts of the state where power was out for almost a month after the
storm.