ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, January 9, 1996 TAG: 9601100119
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
WHEN THE weather forecasters start talking about snowfall in terms of feet instead of inches - as in, 2 or 3 feet of snow might fall before this storm passes through - well, that is just the first indication that something unusual is happening in the Roanoke and New River valleys.
The first indication, but surely not the only one.
There is the alarming mound of snow on the front stoop after eight or 10 hours, enough to satisfy all those determinedly cheery winter-weather-lovers who already have pulled out mittens and sleds and taken a few runs down a few hills. They're happy. This is sufficient. Yet the snow doesn't taper off. It just keeps falling. Harder than ever.
Next morning, there is the ominous lack of light through the closed blinds at the windows. You hurry to whip the blinds up to let in ... an ominous lack of light. Outside it is white, but not bright. The ground, the rooftops, the air itself, all white.
White is not surprising, of course. It is snowing. What is odd is that the ground has somehow gotten closer overnight. The trees in the yard are noticeably shorter; branches that had been well out of the average person's reach look like they've been taken down a notch, or two, or three. Why, you'd be able to trim back those lower branches without climbing a ladder - except you know you'd drop mid-thigh into the snow, your feet sinking firmly down to earth, unable to walk lightly enough on this fragile surface to keep from crushing it down and bulldozing it aside with every human step.
More surprises. The quiet. A few hearty souls break it from time to time, burrowing out of their homes to make brief, brave stabs at freeing cars or clearing walking paths but, mostly, to simply exhilarate in the extraordinary snow. To take high hops through it, jump in it, laugh at the ridiculousness of it. Wonder at it. But the usual noises of traffic on nearby thoroughfares - the sound of wheels on wet pavement, or chains clacking on asphalt - are absent. Later in the day, when a snowplow would usually get around to scraping one lane on the residential streets, a skier instead glides down the middle of the road.
The governor has declared a state of emergency. The city of Roanoke has declared a state of emergency. They called in the National Guard. Even the interstates and primaries were for many hours barely passable - or impassable. The snowplows and four-wheel drives, those lifelines in every major snowfall, were getting stuck! Drivers who ignored pleas from police and the highway department to stay off the roads were abandoning their cars. Emergency vehicles were having a hard time reaching people who need help.
It is such a quiet, muted emergency, though. It's more peaceful than anything else, at least to those fortunate to be warm and dry, healthy and well-stocked with food and refreshments.
It is the snowstorm of a lifetime: if not quite a blizzard because the wind was not quite strong enough, then sufficiently close to go down in popular memory as the Blizzard of '96. It is one for the history books, for sure. The 22.2 inches of snow officially recorded in Roanoke from 1 p.m. Saturday to 1 p.m. Sunday, was the most for a 24-hour period here since they started counting such things - and easily more than the 16 inches recorded in the Blizzard of '93.
You remember that one. A winter cyclone that swept up the East Coast in March of that year. A once-in-a-lifetime storm, we were told.
How many lifetimes are we going to have to stand?
LENGTH: Medium: 63 linesby CNB