Shake, shiver, swirl

If the weather prediction is right, the snow falling outside my window right this minute is only the beginning of – ♬ dun-dun-duuuun ♬ – Snowmageddon 2019. Seriously, that’s what they’re calling it, folks, except when they’re calling it Snowpocalypse 2019. I find this so amusing that I’ve been texting my friends and family in Southern California with “official” Snowmageddon updates and photos. So far we’ve got maybe an inch. But I did get to leave work early – on a Friday no less. Slightly-long weekend, here I am!

To be fair, it’s still early – it’s possible this could get ugly by morning. Or not. Keep in mind that Western Washington (WW) isn’t used to major snow events and doesn’t have the ability to clear the roads, especially the steep hills that make up much of this side of the state, like they do in places that get lots of normal snowfall. I read an article yesterday that put the number of snowplows in WW – all the way to the border with Canada – at 100. My tiny little part of Upstate New York had more than that. Then today, I saw a road map that indicated the plowing priority of roads in my county – the ones connected to my townhome complex are slated to be cleared within 36 – 72 hours and the roads within my complex are private so they’re not required to be cleared at all. Oh dear, this could be a very long weekend indeed.

This whole winter storm thing has got me thinking about natural disasters, which happen to be one of the causes of PTSD. It makes sense, right? Random destruction and chaos can result in trauma. This includes earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, floods, wildfires, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions – like the one that took out the entire city of Pompeii, which – as you can see from today’s photos – we visited on our Italian holiday.

I’ve moved around the country a fair bit during my adulthood and, whenever I’ve lived east of the Mississippi, people always ask how I can live with earthquakes. Frankly, they are terrified by the very idea that tectonic plates move around and sometimes smash into one another. When I’ve pointed out that there are other disasters that are just as destructive but a lot more common to their region, my friends have said that they prefer the natural disasters they can see coming – the ones they can prepare for.

What about you? Do you like to know the unthinkable is barreling your way or do you prefer the gift of surprise?

Growing up in San Diego, earthquakes weren’t just a possibility but a given. And that didn’t change when I moved to the greater Seattle area. If anything, the predictions are even more dire up here. Keep in mind that while I do have some experience with minor natural disasters, I am seriously untested, so you should take my thoughts about the matter with a grain of salt – maybe the kind they use to keep the roads clear. I’ve never been in a “Big One”, fled a wildfire, or been close enough to the landfall of a hurricane to feel the full fury. But I have come close. And I’ve witnessed the impact on those who have been smack dab in the thick of it.

I’ve felt earthquakes that you can hear coming, like a truck gunning its engine as you cross the street. The kind that shuffle the contents of your closet until all of your childhood games come crashing down in one big jumble. Some of these temblors were large enough that they would cause mass casualties if they occurred in other parts of the world. But in Southern California, where they’re expected and there’s money enough to prepare, building codes help mitigate their ferocity.

I’ve had tornado warnings flash onto the screen of my phone and have lost power during a hurricane that made landfall forty miles away. I even had a tree in my very own yard crack in half during Hurricane Sandy, despite the fact that I lived more than four hours from the coast. Holy shit – how massive is a storm if it impacts that wide of an area?

I’ve had firefighters knock on my door to warn of potential evacuation and have friends who lost everything to a wildfire. I live in a state that will suffer massive casualties when its largest remaining mountain, one of my very favorite places on earth, vomits its ash to the surface and its resultant mud and pyroclastic flows will turn nearby towns and cities into places less habitable than the surface of the moon. I’ve read what happened the last time it did this and it is terrifying – even more so because Mt. Rainier is on the short list for volcanic eruptions.

Honestly, for most of my adult life, I’ve voted for disaster à la surprise. I have argued that it’s better not to know it’s coming – to simply react once the unthinkable hits. But now, after experiencing a severe trauma that I didn’t predict, I’m no longer so sure. I wish I’d known what was coming. I wish I could have done something to prevent it. I wish we’d run far, far away before disaster struck. I wish I’d had the chance to react AND plan instead of simply to react.

But that’s not the way life works. Most of the time, we don’t get to know what’s just ahead. We don’t get to plan. And maybe that really is best. Maybe dealing with the result is easier than coping with the magnified stress of impending doom and the aftermath of destruction.

I hope that any of you who are actually suffering from this weekend’s snowstorm, or any other disasters around the world, are safe and warm. I realize that just because it’s not happening as predicted here, doesn’t mean it’s not happening elsewhere. I hope that when it comes time to dig out and assess the damage, you have help. Let me know if there’s something I can do to make it a little easier. Be safe.

Pompeii was humbling. It was bigger than we’d imagined and so achingly beautiful. I don’t think either of us were prepared for how much it would remind us of a modern city – or how much its technology and architecture and art would make us uneasy. As we walked those streets and compared the way they lived 2,000 years ago to our lives today, we understood the truth about natural disasters. If it happened to them, it could happen to us.

My own Barnaby at kick off for Snowmageddon 2019.

*updated* We got snow overnight and the dogs are loving it!

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