Had a glimpse of the future yesterday...

Don't know if you all heard or not, but northwestern NJ got blindsided by a freak October snowstorm yesterday.

I happened to be sanding floors in Mt. Olive and ran into the snow in the AM. It was pretty and I spent a good deal of time taking pictures and picture-messaging them to people using my phone. Freaked them out!

I also waited for it to stop....

Long about 12:30PM, we lost power. Work came to an abrupt halt. I did some hand scraping in the corners, patiently waiting for power to return.... nothing. I told the homeowner that I was going to step out for a little lunch until this passed. Bad mistake.

Upon leaving, I encountered some of the worst driving conditions I've seen in quite a few winters. The heavy wet snow had frozen to the ground leaving 3 - 4" of solid packed ice everywhere. Anytime you touched your brakes, you slid. I slid past my first turn and couldn't back up to it again.. I took the next turn and got onto the highway. It was not much better. No plow had been out.... towns were caught flat-footed. An ice/slush mixture covered the road. It was clear that it hadn't been cleaned and wouldn't anytime soon. I made my way back toward Rt 80 figuring I'll call it an early day. I skidded through a few more intersections... luckily, no accidents. Others weren't so lucky. As I got to the on-ramp, I saw four flares... the interstate was closed!

I turned around on the median (under an overpass) and went back to the intersection I just skidded through. I figured to stop at a local Lowes and poke around until this cleared. However, the hill was steep and my van was light... needless to say I was forced back.

I pulled into a Chilis restaurant to sit it out. As I walked in, I was greeted by the manager.... in the dark. They had lost power too, even earlier than I did up the road. They could only take cash and only had a very limited menu - soups and salads. Thank God beer is not electronically dispensed!

I sat in the dark drinking a cold beer and eating luke-warm chili and chips watching the storm outside.

It dawned on me that this may be the sign of things to come... If the economy breaks as many say it will, limited services, rolling power outages or full blackouts, 'cash-only', no local government services (police, fire, road dept.)...

It really got me thinking and scared me. Usually, I'm prepared for things like this but the season hadn't started yet and I hadn't moved my 'winter kit' into the van yet.

The winter kit has warmer clothes, a blanket, fire-starters, food, etc. It really gave me an eye opener as to what other folks are going to suffer when TSHTF.

It also drove home something I had long said; you don't get to make any of the rules in a crisis. As it happened, in this crisis I was 30 miles from my home and all roads back home were closed. Side-streets were impassable. No heat, no electric, no nothing. I was at the mercy of the crisis.

You don't know where you will be when the music stops and everyone goes for a chair... Prepare yourself. Prepare YOUR VEHICLE. Try to stay close to home, if possible. I realize many times it is not. In that case, be able to sustain yourself for a few days in whatever condition exists.

Hope this helps someone else...