We have been expecting a winter storm to hit Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday, it decided to hit Tuesday morning.About 04:00 I woke up from the wind and sleet hitting the window. I couldn't go back to sleep and just layed there listening to the storm. A little before 5, I saw that Liz was awake on Facebook and went and got her.
She is needing to get to Gilmer to start working for Ray. She wanted to go last night, but it was already dark and I kept telling her that it would be fine and she'd be able to get out of town before the storm hit.
I WAS WRONG. She decided to try and leave as fast as possible and get out of the storm, cause the weather is better the further you go East. She and I got her car packed up around 05:30.
It was miserable.... the wind was super strong, the sleet/ice just pounded you in the face. But she wanted to try to get out.. so she took off and I just hoped she would be safe. Meanwhile, I texted my manager, who told me to stay home and not risk the bad roads. I was SUPER excited about that.
Less than 10 minutes later, she called me saying that she was coming back home. All of the roads were iced over and she knew she couldn't make the drive. BIG PROBLEM!!!! The entrance gate to our apartment had frozen shut.
Luck would have it, that it opened to let her out, but in the few minutes it took her to come back, the gate was completely stuck. She called me asking for help and my instinct said to just run over there. I was smart enough to put on my coat... but I didn't even grab my keys, I just started running as fast as I could to the front of the complex to get her in.
I made it to the front and of the three gates, NONE would open. I kept running around hoping I would find a way to get her in and couldn't find a way. I had her give me her keys to see if I could get her in through the clubhouse. I was able to get in to the workout room, but I couldn't get to the front door to let her in. I just kept running around while the ice was hitting me in the face. While I was running from side to side... Liz was working with other people trapped at the gate trying to get them open, I guess she pulled the gate open far enough that a person could walk through, but set off the alarm in the process.
Finally, I thought maybe if I took my car to all of the other gates, I would be able to get them to open. I booked it back to my apartment, got my keys and scraped off about an inch of my windshield so that I could drive. I went all around the complex doing everything I could to get a gate to open and there was no luck. Finally Liz decided she would just squeeze through the opening in the gate and leave her car out my the front. She grabbed her bags and computer that she had backed and started walking toward me. I grabbed her and brought her back. All the while, the terrible ice storm continued as we were running around.
We got back to the apartment about 06:15 completely out of breath. I just kept saying, "I can't believe the past hour just happened."
Since then, we had to go pay our rent. The ice had sort of slowed down, but the wind is about 40 miles an hour. That makes all that lovely ice that fell hit you RIGHT in the face. It hurts like fire. The walk from the clubhouse to our apartment to pay our rent just about killed me.
Liz is still trying to figure out how to get to Gilmer today. A bunch of the highways are completely shut down. Hopefully she can get there soon as she is supposed to start working tomorrow. As for me, I will NOT be leaving this comfy little apartment until I make an attempt at work tomorrow..... We'll see how that goes.
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