It was October; a pretty odd time to experience a blizzard-like snowfall. This is Nebraska though and as anyone here will tell you, "If you don't like the weather; just wait a few minutes." The night was silent, while the snowflakes fell down slowly onto the wet ground. The weather man said that we would have some ice when we drive tomorrow, so we better be careful. I was inside watching the snow fall as it was lighted by the orangish glow of the street lamp. The snow looked like it totally consumed everything. The trees, streets and houses along the quaint little street I lived on were covered in white. Because everything was half-wet and half-frozen, the snow stuck to whatever was wet.
Being the energetic 12-year old I was; I went to bed think how awesome it will be the next day when I get to go sledding. I was in the gateway of dreamland when I heard a huge CRRRRAAAACCCKKK and then a THUD. I woke up startled thinking something must happened to our house. I looked outside my bedroom window to see, not one, but two trees that had broken under the weight of ice and snow on their branches. Not only that, but the trees had fallen right on the power lines leading to our house, so our power had gone out.
The next day, I learned that our house was not the only one this happened to. Thousands of people were left without power. This occurred mostly in the heart of the city. Most of the outer skirt areas were not affected. To make matters worse, the clean-up crews took forever to reach houses without power, because the roads were extremely icy.
My family and I were without power for a full day and we were the lucky ones. Some people went without power for a full week. I remember cuddling next to my mom under a warm blanket, because we had no heater. We used some Sterno cans to light up a pot of Salsa Con Queso. It was like camping in the house. We played hide-and-go-seek in the dark. I remember how much it brought my family together. Even though it kind of sucked not to have a TV; I didn't mind. My family was one of the first ones to get our power back on our block, so we were able to help out our neighbors. We helped by cleaning up some of the mess that the storm had made around peoples houses and we provided some power to electric heaters for different houses with industrial strength extension cords.
The storm showed me some things about the world that I hadn’t thought about before. First: Sometimes nature can be beautiful and sometimes it can be destructive. In a way the storm was beautiful with the combination of shimmering ice and glittering snow, the white-blanketed city almost shined. The storm was destructive in that the ice covered the roads, making way for lots of accidents and some of the falling trees crashed into some house. Second: Everyone needs a little help sometimes. That day we got to know some of our neighbors just by helping them and they helped us in return. Hardly anyone will deny you of your help when they’re sitting in a dark house, freezing their butt off. So don’t ever be afraid to give help even if the person acts like they don’t need it.
http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/nebraska/OCT97SNOW.html
This is a website that gives info about what happened that day, with meteorological info and photos.
From the website:
It was according to Professor Ken Dewey, a Climatologist in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, who statistically ranked the October 1997 snowstorm as being a "once in a 200-year snowstorm".
The snowstorm which struck the upper Midwest during the weekend of October 24-26, 1997 and surprised many people by the amount of snow that fell in such a short time. The snow which fell did so with very damaging effects. Many trees were damaged and many tree branches fell, causing widespread power outages in many communities including Lincoln and Omaha. Thousands were without power for up to ten days after the catastrophic event.