Mother Nature with Attitude!!

Today as I look out the window, I see a beautiful, pale blue sky laced with thin, filmy clouds.  The sun is shining off the snow, making it brilliant, incandescent almost, and the sound of the front end loader working to move the snow from the side of the road to safer and more secure locations can be heard in the distance.  The beeping sound of the water truck in reverse can be heard, too, as the daily water delivery service is completed around our neck of the hamlet of Tuk.

We have just finished a lovely lunch of vegetable soup, sandwiches, carrot sticks and strawberries, the lunch dishes are all tidied up, Patrick and Charlotte are using their imaginations in Charlotte's room playing one of their many cooperative games, James is laying down reading the second book in The Hunger Games trilogy, Greg is working on some school work on his laptop, I am working on this, and my mother-in-law, Dianne (aka Gramma Wilson) is reading and knitting socks.  The laundry is on, the bathroom is cleaned and the floors are swept.  Life in the Wilson household is peaceful, quiet and content.  Today.

Last weekend, it was not.  Last week we were scared to death by what I can only describe as the worst and most frightening weather we have ever experienced.  Last Friday was a P.D. Day so Greg was at school, but the kids and I were at home with Gramma hanging out.  I noticed that the wind had picked up and before long visibility was limited.  Just as I began to consult Environment Canada, Greg came in the door saying that the teachers had been sent home because the wind was picking up and did we know we were under a Blizzard Watch?  I sighed.  That meant we should go stock up on some water, milk, bread, and make sure we had enough to cook on the wood stove or eat without means of electricity should the power go out.  Shortly afterward, Greg got a phone call from a colleague who had to go to the Hamlet to make arrangements for oil delivery to her house and she wondered if she could get a ride since she didn't want to go out in wind gusting to 80 km/hr.  Since we had to go to the Northern Store to get our groceries, we agreed to take her and offered our chauffeur services to other teachers, who decided they should lay in some supplies too.

Greg was gone for a few hours, and I was beginning to get worried.  When he finally returned with our supplies, his face and body was taut with tension and he was taking deep breaths.  He told me that those were the worst conditions in which he had ever driven!  There was zero visibility and they had to creep along at a snail's pace, not knowing when or if they would come upon another vehicle or person, trying to keep the van on the road due to the gusting wind.  When they arrived at the office to arrange for the oil, the teacher got lost in the snow trying to find the office door.  One of the guys in the office saw her and ran out to guide her inside.  By the time they got groceries and creeped along the roads to get everybody home safely, several hours had gone by. A quick trip out had turned into a nerve-wracking adventure that everybody in the van will remember!  Greg said you could cut the tension in the van with a knife.

Saturday, was much like today....only by then we were under a blizzard warning.  The sun was shining, but the clouds in the distance were grey and ominous, and continued to become darker as the day went on.  We had laid in our supplies, and were ready to 'weather' the storm, but there was something a little un-nerving about the sunshine....it's like looking into the smiling face of your murderer.  You know you're gonna' get it imminently, but when?  There was also a strange, almost eerie quiet about the hamlet.  There were no skidoos motoring about, no people walking along the roads or kids playing hockey on the lake and there were no kids 'playing out', the Tuk expression for playing outside.  The water truck made its delivery and the sewage truck made its drainage but otherwise it was quiet.  Too quiet.  To be fair, there were a lot of people who braved the trip to Inuvik on Saturday while the weather was good, but in my limited experience, I would have been petrified to do so because the storm could hit land at any point.  Environment Canada said to expect the storm to reach land by Saturday evening, but sometimes the winds pick up or decrease and the blizzards can either hit land earlier than expected or stall.  Either way, seeing as we are but a hop, skip and a jump from the Arctic Ocean, the last thing I wanted was to be out on the ice road when the wind picked up.  I couldn't imagine the horror of being stuck on the ice road to ride out the storm!  No way!

By suppertime Saturday, as the day was waning, and the sun was getting ready to slip below the horizon, we all agreed that we felt like sitting ducks, only frozen ones, maybe like our stuffed duck Francis. (Please see my previous blog called 'Our New Addition' for that story.)  We were keeping tabs on our water usage, feeling relatively confident that there would be no water delivery on Sunday.  We played cards, competed in MarioKart 8 as a family, and made supper....all the while keeping one eye on the windows.  Eventually, bedtime came for all of us, and we went nervously went to bed, looking outside at the moon and the stars shining down on us...but for how much longer?

Along about 2am, I awoke to use the bathroom.  On my way back to bed, I checked all the windows in the kitchen and the living room, checking to see if the wind or the snow had picked up yet.  I could see the houses across the street, their dark windows reflecting in the streetlights, which were shining bright.  I could see a little bit of snow streaking across the light, but on the whole it was pretty quiet.  I carried on down the hall toward my room, when all of a sudden, I heard this sudden noise that hit the house so hard, I thought the boys' room had caved in!  Adrenalin surging, I ran to the boys' room, and there they were sleeping soundly, blissfully unaware of the fact that they were in the middle of a significant weather event.  I went back into the living room and kitchen, and through the front window the light from our front deck mixed with the blowing snow made it look like there were flames engulfing the front of the house!  I felt the mudroom door, expecting it to feel hot, but it was freezing cold.  It was then that I became aware of an incredibly loud, ear splitting sound, like a locomotive barrelling inches from our house!  I looked out the window I had just peered through not two minutes before, and I could not see a thing.  The snow was so thick that all I saw was pure white, and the visibility was zero.

So, the blizzard had hit, literally!  I now understand what it means when a storm hits - and may I never experience anything like that again!  The wind roared around the house and through the hamlet of Tuk at 120 km/hr, supposedly gusting to much faster!  It was difficult to sleep because the house was shaking so much I felt like it would be blown away, leaving us in our beds clamouring for the blankets.  I managed to fall into a fitful sleep, but it was shortly later that I heard the kids, who were cowering in the living room shortly after 5 am and they were plenty scared!  I reassured them that the house was not going to blow away, but all of us sat in the living room huddling together silently listening to the chaos occurring outside.

We spent the day in our snuggies, and but for the fact that our front door blew open in the wind and the snow swirled throughout our mudroom, soaking our coats, packing snow into our boots and filling our mitten, hat and scarf bins with snow, we rode the storm out with only two power flickers.  We had internet all day, satellite TV, and power, much to our shock and pleasure!  Part of Tuk was out of power for about 14 hours and the school gymnasium was opened as an emergency shelter for those who needed it.  We consider ourselves lucky since we could stay all cozy and warm in our own house.  The following day school was closed so people could dig out, regain power,  and assess any damage.  Again, it was a beautiful, sunny day.  As people began to emerge from their homes, they blinked in the light, like a bear stumbling out of its cave.

I mentioned some of this as it happened on Facebook, and some of you posted things like "Stay warm!" and "Be safe!",  which was all well-heeded advice.  While there were some moments when I was terrified, and others when I was more concerned than frightened, it was one of those events that you can hardly believe is happening while it is occurring, and yet can hardly believe it ever happened once it's over.  All I can say is that I hope we never have to experience Mother Nature at her rawest and most primitive again.