This is how my day was today:
I didn't build this snowman, but he sure looks like how I feel!
We are in the middle of the worst snowstorm we've had yet this winter. When I got up this morning, the weather app on my phone had us under a winter storm warning with about twelve inches of snow expected.
And yet, our superintendent didn't even call for a two hour delay - he kept schools open, despite the fact that the storm had arrived early and we were having a rain/sleet/snow mixture several hours before the school buses began running their routes.
At school, the entire staff was dismayed and disgruntled that, with such dangerous weather coming in, our students were being asked to attend school. Maybe if we were a school corporation that was in town, it might have been reasonable, but we aren't. Geographically, we are the second largest school district in the state of Indiana, and we put 1.5 million miles on our buses annually as a result. (I think our square mileage is around 450 square miles or so. )
Our buses negotiate the Wabash, Wildcat, Wea, and Tippecanoe river valleys on one lane roads in isolated areas. Often the school bus is the first vehicle on the road for the day, not a good thing when the road conditions are poor.
And we paid big time today for our superintendent's decision. As the weather worsened, mid-morning he announced that we would close at 1:30. We pulled out our emergency dismissal plans and made sure every child knew what his or her family's plan was to get them home.
The high schools dismissed at 12:30, an hour earlier than us (our buses run double routes, high schools first, then elementary/middle schools next.) At 12:45, I received word that already a bus was stuck in the parking lot at Harrison High School and blocking all traffic.
About fifteen minutes later, a fellow teacher's son texted her and said his bus had been out running its route but was now stuck in the snow "somewhere."
And so the afternoon went.
1:30 came around and only three of our twelve buses had arrived. Those children were loaded and headed out for home. The buses trickled in, but an hour later, we were still waiting for three buses. (Part of the problem was that two had arrived, but were stuck in the snow on the lane leading up to Hershey.)
I could see one of them out my classroom window.
Looks like it narrowly missed that electrical pole when it slid off the road!
Finally at 3:00, an hour and a half after the children had officially been dismissed, we were instructed to bring our remaining kiddos to the gym. I had six of my twenty-four still with me, and was not surprised to see about two hundred other children pouring into the gym.
Our principal quickly met with the teachers, thanking us for staying, but asked those of us who lived the furthest away to please leave and not stay in the worsening conditions. I am one of those who travel the furthest, but, like the others who lived far away, I stayed until we got a movie going for the remaining kids and one of the three missing buses had arrived and was loading.
(Photo from WLFI.com)
A picture of another one of our buses which has slid off the roadway and is on the edge of a ditch.
Then my own saga began.
Like the two buses, I got stuck in the parking lot and had to be pushed out by three other teachers.
Then while trekking down the rural roads and sliding around in the heavy, wet snow, my wipers stopped working and my windshield quickly became snow covered and I could not see. I couldn't pull off anywhere, (there are only fields on either side of the road and I knew I would get stuck again) so I had to put my flashers on and stop right there on the road, get out of the car, clear the heavy snow off my clogged windshield, and get back in.
To my dismay, I discovered as I began driving that my windshield wipers were still not working and my windshield was quickly covered up with snow again. Miraculously, a small hole stayed open and I was able to limp into the gas station a couple of miles down the road near where the interstate crosses the countryside.
I was pretty shaken, but I got out, cleaned the window again, and tested the wipers a couple of times to make sure they worked. Gathering my courage, I got back on the road and headed toward home.
Normally I take the interstate home, but an emergency vehicle was blocking the on-ramp. Up ahead on the road was this:
(Photo from WLFI.com)
Several jack-knifed semitrailers that had closed down the freeway.
(Photo from WLFI.com)
The interstate was icy and snow-covered in some spots, and there had been a parade of alerts crawling across my phone all day as the storm progressed, what with accident after accident shutting down sections of it for a couple of hours.
So, I ended up going a different route home, taking Highway 52 and its bridge over the Wabash River at the base of a significant hill. Normally the bridge and hill aren't a problem. But when you have snow and ice... The bridge ices quickly and is the site of frequent crashes. And the hill - you have to get a good head of steam to get up it. Not easy when the snow and ice are forcing you to crawl.
Luckily I made it over the bridge and up the hill safely. Turning onto the road that led to my home meant that I was back onto snow covered roads that desperately needed plowing. I drove slowly to avoid sliding and skidding as best I could.
Almost home! My neighborhood is on the far edge of town and is surrounded by fields, so its streets were deeply covered in snow. As I came around a bend in the road, I saw it was blocked by another school bus from our school corporation!
I live on a street parallel to the one it was blocking, so I was able to get home. (I got stuck in my own drive, though, and couldn't get into the garage.)
I could see the bus out my dining room windows and across my neighbors' yards. It was there until 4:30 PM, three hours after dismissal time. Those poor kids!
I am home now, and our buses have completed their routes. My guess is that we will have a snow day tomorrow as we are expecting more snow, the winds to pick up, plus the sheriff and county management have issued travel advisories, asking folks to stay home.
I sure hope a lesson has been learned from all of this, and that the next time we have warning of a bad storm, a better judgment call is made.
