Article January 9, 2012 Issue

Snowed in – and safe

By Pamela Joy Concar

©Goodshoot/Thinkstock

In the middle of our thirty acres, our family had built a basement for our new house, put a temporary flat roof on it and planned to live in it for a year before completion of the house. There were steps down into the basement and small windows at ground level. That first winter we experienced a blizzard with record breaking snowfall. This made our temporary cozy home a cold, underground, and frightening prison.

A few days before the storm I was in the one-room post office in town getting my mail when the clerk asked if I’d heard that a snow storm might be coming. She was concerned since my husband at that time had gone out of state to work for a few weeks and I was alone with the children so far from town without a phone. (This was in the days before cellphones!) I told her we were just fine and not to worry. But after the snowstorm, I was very worried.

When I opened the door to the stairs, I just saw a wall of snow. I dug my way up the stairs and realized just how deep the snow was; it was higher than my waist, making it impossible to walk. The snow drifts were incredibly high, and I couldn’t tell where my car was. I couldn’t even get to the wood pile next to the house that supplied our fuel for heat. Our house was a long distance from the main road, making it impossible to get help. The wind was bitter cold and fierce as it kept blowing snow back into the stairwell. After a few minutes, I realized my only choice was to go back inside, get quiet, and pray. 