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At work yesterday there were many horror and “war” stories after our storm on Wednesday. Tales of people getting home between midnight and 2am and then finding no power; the guy who travelled 4.5 miles in 4 hours before deciding to leave his car on the side of the road and walk the last couple of miles. The lady whose car broke down in the middle of the road and had to decide whether to stay in the rapidly freezing car or attempt to flag a stranger down. The guy who found a cheap hotel whose prices had suddenly escalated to more than $200 for the night! The pregnant girl who was stuck on a road in her car for 8 hours (baby bouncing on her bladder) before her husband found one of his work colleagues she could stay with. The guy who got out of his car and helped others push their cars and assisted with jumper leads. The guy whose wipers snapped off under the weight of the snow (yes, I laughed at that one though it’s not really funny!). The guy who spent the entire night on one of the freeways – trapped until 5am when traffic finally started to move again.
Then today I learnt of one young guy’s odyssey that almost brought tears to my eyes because it was just so sweet. He is fairly new to the company; he comes from a little further south where there’s not so much snow. He left the office before 5pm and after more than 3 hours stuck on the road he decided to turn around and come back and catch the metro. He rode the train to the end of the line intending to catch a bus home from there. Unknown to him the buses stopped running at 9.30pm because Metro considered road conditions to be too dangerous.
Finding no alternative he walked *ten miles* home!!!!! I asked “why didn’t you stop at a hotel?” He replied: ” well, my girlfriend had been at home all day by herself with our 7 week old baby so I just wanted to get home and help her” ….
He did not make it into work yesterday – he said that when he woke up he could not move his legs – they were so stiff and sore from trudging through that snow!
Aussie Emjay's Blog 