Winter storm a Dud!

This last blizzard was a dud.


The meteorologists on all three stations predicted 8-13 inched of snow between last night and this morning. Three of our REACT teams, including myself, were out in full force last night, waiting for the storm to come in. Earlier in the day, we were told sleet would fall at around 4-5 pm and then the snow would start around 6 pm, with heavy snow starting at 8 pm. The heavy snow would fall all night, leaving us with blizzard-like conditions and about 12 inches of more snow. Last evening, our three teams went 10-8 at around 7:15 pm and watched the radar, ready for the freezing precipitation to come in. I was in my truck and had a new REACT member with me and the other two veteran REACT members had new members riding with them as well. The other two veteran REACT members were going to stay out all night long, but I had to go in early because I had to work the next day.

We all sat around in our vehicles at OCCC and chatted. There was no reason to do much driving since there was no precipitation falling. Well, the forecasters were dead wrong. I went 10-7 at 10 pm and went home to bed. I was a little disappointed that nothing had happened, but I knew I would need my sleep. I woke up at 3 am this morning and looked outside. It was lightly snowing and there was only around 3 inches on the ground. I didn’t know if more heavy snow was coming, or if that was all we were going to get. I had my alarm set for 5:15 am, so when it went off, I immediately got up and looked outside. There may have been 4 inches of snow on the ground, but that was it. Since it hadn’t snowed as much as they predicted, I took my time getting ready.

I left the house at 6:00 am and had no problem getting out of the neighborhood or getting on the highway. My only problem was my windows. My windows had ice on the inside of them and I was really having a hard time getting the ice to melt. To top it all off, my heater/defroster is only working on low setting. My fan will not blow on any other setting but the low setting. Because of that, it took forever to get rid of the ice. I made it to work easily and got ready for a long, boring, day. Every one showed up today, but we were only dispatching emergency calls, so that gave me very little to do.

In other news…..

My Dell laptop is history. I used it last night on facebook and radio reference.com and then left it on, but closed the lid. When I got home last night, it showed an error screen. I turned it off several times and turned it back on, but it would never leave the error screen. So, I don’t know what happened to it, but it no longer works. I need to somehow copy off the files from the hard drive, but I am not sure how to do it. It stinks because I need a new laptop, but don’t have the money for one. I do have a home computer, but it is slower than molasses. I guess I will work in my office this evening and see what I can do to get my home computer to speed up. I may ride with another REACT member this evening and assist with stranded motorists. I haven’t quite decided yet.
http://www.okcentralreact.org/