Snow storm in Olympia WA 2012 (exposed the Jerks and Knuckleheads)

Earlier this week, Olympia, WA saw some snow….then we saw A LOT of snow (about 15”). I thought it would be good to document the snow fall in my neighborhood, Indian Summer. At the time I created this video, I had no idea things were going to get worse.

Snow is bad enough in Olympia because we usually have mild winters and if we do get snow, it’s only a couple of inches and doesn’t last for more than a day or two.

But the biggest problem came when we had an ice storm right after getting record snow levels. This ice storm coated everything with a thick layer of heavy ice. Trees and limbs cracked, snapped and fell over power lines, which left many in Western Washington without power for days. For us, we were out of power for two days, and we feel lucky.

This is our backyard. These are limbs from fir trees in our yard that are about 100 feet tall, so these limbs are about 15 feet long with diameters of about six inches. Because these limbs are so heavy, they fell flat to the ground, missing our house thankfully. But we have days of clean-up ahead of us.

For now, we have rain showers with a few sun breaks, and all of this is making the snow and ice a mushy mess. But the next storm on the way is now a wind storm, which could knock out power again. I hope that doesn’t happen but we are prepared.

This makes me think about what will happen when we have a real crisis or natural disaster. What I’ve learned is most people don’t react well. I witnessed a lot of bad behavior this week, which leads me to believe that along with our survival instinct, I think we humans also have a Jerk DNA sequence along with a Knucklehead DNA strand.

My advice if we lose power again…

• Be prepared
• Be self-reliant, and
• Help those with high amounts of Jerk and Knucklehead DNA. They will need your help the most. Don’t worry - you’ll be able to spot them easily. They are the ones who think BBQ-ing in their living room is a good source of heat; wearing flip flops in the snow while putting tire chains on their car (in the middle of the road, blocking traffic) is a good idea; and speeding past those shoveling out a storm drain and spraying them is fun.