Just a few weeks after “Snowmageddon” paralyzed much of the country (especially the South), the Northeast is right back in the thick of it with Winter Storm Hernando.
I spent some time Monday looking at the live updates from the New York Times and NBC News, and the pictures coming out of New York City and Boston look bad. It makes me glad I live in Kansas City these days. Although we can get some bad weather here, it rarely gets as bad as the northern states.
After all, it’s one thing to deal with a historic storm once a decade, but having two of them back-to-back in the span of a single month is a whole different animal for those of us trying to stay ahead of the game.
The meteorological community is calling this a “bombogenesis” event, which sounds like something out of a Michael Bay movie and is a term I’d never heard before. Essentially, when the central pressure of a storm drops, it literally “bombs out” over the Atlantic. When that happens, you get these pressure gradients that could translate into hurricane-force wind gusts and snowfall rates that can hit three to four inches per hour.
Clearly, this isn’t just a “stay inside and drink cocoa” kind of day. Instead, it’s a legitimate test of your home’s infrastructure and your own mental fortitude. Worse, it’s a test of the power grid’s resilience, which as I’ve stated before, is perilous at best when tested to such limits.
I recently watched this video that explains the sheer scale of what those in the Northeast are dealing with:
Basically, the video highlights how the rapid intensification of Hernando (the current winter storm) is creating whiteout conditions that make travel virtually impossible. When the authorities say to stay off the roads, they aren’t being overly cautious. In conditions like these, a simple fender bender can quickly turn into a life-threatening situation if you’re stranded in sub-zero wind chills for hours waiting on a tow truck that can’t get to you.
This is precisely why I recommend you have winter survival supplies stashed in your vehicle, including blankets and/or sleeping bags, winter gloves, stocking caps, extra warm clothes, and whatever else you deem necessary to literally keep you and other passengers from freezing.
Reflecting on my recent post about surviving Snowmageddon, I noticed how some folks in the prepping community felt “topped off” and ready for the season. The problem with back-to-back disasters is the depletion of resources and a “it’s not going to happen again” mentality. But then Hernando showed up and ruined that belief, lol.
Maybe you used a good portion of your firewood or a significant chunk of your pantry staples during the last storm but never got around to restocking. I get it, I’m doing that right now, but I don’t have a winter storm to contend with, either. As you well know, often the most critical survival actions occur before the emergency happens, and that includes the “in-between” bad times.
Obviously, the biggest concern for most of us during a blizzard is the power grid. Between the heavy, wet snow and those “bombing” winds, trees are coming down on power lines across the region. If the lights go out for a long time, your primary focus shifts immediately to heat. I’ve talked before about what you need for snow and ice problems, but it’s worth repeating that your heating plan shouldn’t rely on a single source. That is, if your furnace needs electricity to run the blower, you’d better have a backup like a kerosene heater or a wood stove when things get brutal outside.
The same goes for feeding your family. If you’re stuck with an electric range, you need to know how you will cook during a winter power outage. Whether it’s a camping stove (use outdoors!) or a backyard grill (also use outdoors!!), you need a way to boil water (in this case to keep it from freezing) and heat food (mostly for morale) without the grid. I’ve seen too many people wait until the power is already flickering to realize they don’t have a way to do either, let alone keep from freezing to death.
The pattern of these storms suggests that our “new normal” might involve more frequent, high-intensity weather events, but I no meteorologist, so I’m just guessing here. Regardless, my point is that it’s easy to get complacent after one storm passes, but as the most recent winter storm reminds us, the next one might be right around the corner whether you’re ready for it or not.
Stay warm, stay safe, and use this time to consider what worked and what didn’t, restock supplies, and prepare for the next one.
Leave a Reply