Have you ever been snowed in?

[1AngelicFruitCake]

Inspired by this article
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10250997/UK-set-snow-freezing-conditions.html

Have you ever been snowed in either at home or somewhere else and what did you do? I have a daydream about being snowed in on a train journey and where you would sleep🤔

Yes plenty times. Once for a week with no electricity. I charged my mobile phone (pre smart phone days so just used for calls and texts) in the car but after a couple of days the mobile mast used up it's back up battery and then there was no phone signal. I remember the dread when the radio batteries started to go as it was the only link to the outside world

One day I called in sick as I had a migraine. Stayed in bed until mid afternoon but was woken by my Dad calling to check to see how I was going to get home.

I was very confused until I looked out of the window and saw tonnes of snow outside. All of my work colleagues tried to get home that day and spent 3 hours in their car only moving up one road. They all had to give up and walk back to work. Almost the whole office had a work sleepover and it would have been me too if it wasn't for my sick day. Sounded like lots of fun! I arrived at work the next day with most of my colleagues on the way home having been given the day off for having to sleep in the office.

Yes but only at home when the country lanes were impossible and snow drifts were a problem.

Yes, as a teen. We lived up a single track lane in a tiny hamlet in the countryside. Whenever there was snow the lane was impassable and the power lines would often come down if it the snow came on high winds. My parents made sure we had plenty of food in during the winter and we had alternative ways of heating the house, lanterns and camping stoves. If the bad weather was forecast my Dad would drive to a layby on the nearby A road and leave the car there overnight. If we got snowed in overnight he would walk across the fields to the car in his walking boots and wet weather gear to get to work. We had friends the same age as us in the house opposite so played out in the snow or went to each other’s houses to play board games when the power was out. It was fun.

Yes, 1981/82 with a 3 year old annnd a baby, no water because the pipes froze, no electricity or phone because all the lines came down. Snowdrifts up to the bedroom window and from hedgerow to hedgerow in the lanes. We got water by melting snow, luckily we had a wood burning stove I could cook on.
That lasted for 10 days. Not fun at all!

Several times.
Live on NZ in rural area - it was lovely, no electricity but we have a lovely
log burner and boiled water and cooked dinner on it.
We had lots red wine - it was magical.

Sort of got Snowed Out last year.

8.30... took kids to school, no snow
9.00... at school, few snowflakes
9.15... go into Asda, snow falling a bit heavier
10am.. energe into a gridlocked winter wonderland!

Took 50minutes to get across town to the start of the road up to where we lived. To find it closed by Police.
Another 45mins to the alternative route... also closed.
I got back to kids school at 12ish, surprised them fir asking for them to come home, as that part of town had hardly no snow. They were shocked to know the conditions out into the hills.
Another 45 mins driving to get to bottom of the hills, where I was directed to leave the car and we had to walk the last mile or so. The foot paths were about half foot deep, the the road was sheet ice. I had canvas shoes on, one DD had open school shoes, the other had wellies fortunately.

Got home at 1.30, DH asked where we had been... then asked why we didn't call...mobile network hasn't been picking up calls.

Thats as dramatic as my snow stories get!

No but when I was a teenager there was a big storm and so many big trees came down that our village was cut off. We didn't have power for a week. It was brilliant!

Many times as a child/teenager in rural wales. All pretty exciting as a child but the novelty wears off when you're 14 and trapped in the house with your family for days at a time

I have a couple of times but late seventies, early eighties.

I worked for my Dad but the premises were several miles away from where I lived, there was a good 2 to 3 feet of snow but nothing at work.

Dad didn't believe me and sent my brother in a truck to fetch me, truck ended up in a ditch because brother couldn't tell where the road was. Brother then walked to my house and had to stay a couple of days.

My baby was born March 81, on one occasion I couldn't get out of the house for 3 weeks because of snow, I was going insane baby was a proper handful and never stopped screaming. It was possible to get out just not with a baby.

As a child in Cumbria we were snowed in for 3 days with 6 foot snow drifts. We lived down a long, narrow, country lane and couldn't even get out the drive in our 4x4. At the time we were living in a static caravan and out water pipes froze, we couldn't flush the loo or run the taps, thankfully we had an outhouse with a working tap!

Yes, most years. We are very very rural.

Yes. I live in the national park and if there's heavy snow we're snowed in.
Even when the main road is gritted or cleared we can't get off our road (not gritted or cleared) to get onto the next road (also not gritted or cleared and also a bloody steep hill!) to get onto the one road that is clear

Longest we've been stuck was a few years back where it was a couple of weeks then it cleared enough to get out then it bloody snowed heavily again and sat on top of the hard icy impacted stuff and we were sealed in for another couple of weeks.
That was fun.
It's not normally that bad though. A few days at most. Some years theres nothing at all.

However, we always prepare. A stock of tinned food, bottled water, painkillers etc etc plus kit for if the power goes.

I grew up on the rural South coast so snow was unusual, there was an unusually heavy snowfall when I was around 12. My Mother made me put on my stepfathers oilskins, he worked at sea, and walk the almost two miles to school, snow was knee deep. I think myself and about four other kids made it to school where we were all promptly told to return home. The oilskins were huge on me and rolled up. I looked ridiculous.

Yes when I was in my teens, DPs lived very rurally and we were on top of a hill in am exposed location. The kind of place that has snow when nobody else does. Very common to get cut off for 3-4 days at a time. We always had bread and milk in the freezer, lots of candles and batteries. We had open fires so made toast on there! Cooker ran off a gas bottle.

In a hotel in Canada once.
We had planned to stay one night in a particular hotel and ext morning reception phoned to say everywhere was snowed in and would we like to stay another night and they would book us in. Ever the cynic I thought it was a ploy to get us to stay and spend money. However I looked out of the window and there was people on skis. I'd never seen that before!
It was clear we were going no where!🤣

We never got snowed in to the extent that we couldn't leave the house, however our housing estate never got gritted until you got to the main road, and my driveway slopes towards the house, so getting a car off the drive and out of the estate is a task that isn't even worth undertaking when there's bad snow or ice.

Best thing to do is grab a pair of solid wellies and walk to the main road where you can hop on a bus to wherever you wanted to go.

Luckily I work from home!

As kids we spent our days defrosting water pipes to get water to the cows

Oh, me too! It was the quid pro quo for getting the day off if the school bus couldn't make it into the village.

My birthday is in December and one year my party had to be cancelled because the farm was cut off. My older brothers offered to drive round collecting the guests by tractor, but sadly my dad vetoed that idea!

As a child living at the top of a steep hill in the Chilterns, we were snowed in only in so far as we couldn't get the car out to drive anywhere but could still walk, so not entirely snowed in in terms of deep snow drifts.

I got snowed in at a colleague's house once. I didn't know her that well, but I was flying in to an airport an hour away from home, and she lived near the airport and had kindly agreed to pick me up from the airport and let me sleep on her living room floor, and then I'd get the bus back home first thing the next morning.

We woke up the next morning to a foot of snow and all buses cancelled. She was living in a shared house, so her flatmates weren't entirely thrilled to have a random stranger suddenly living there (on their living room floor) for 3 days! They were very kind, though, but I imagine they were reasonably relieved to see me go!

During the beast from the east we were snowed in from the Tuesday to the following Monday, so almost a week. We live on top of a huge steep hill, no snow was being cleared or gritting being done. It was one of the toughest weeks of my life, I felt so claustrophobic as there was nearly 5 foot of snow outside our door and when the snow would fall it would completely cover our windows.

I'm looking at snowed in to mean you can't get outside of your house and literally can't get anywhere if you can manage that part.

There have been plenty of times, even here in the city I live in, where the buses have stopped running at all, or have stopped at the main road and turned around (national road 2.5km away). So I tend to wear hiking boots and snow gear into work whenever such weather is threatened from bitter experience, so I can get down, up and down again on the hills from the main road to home. I've been known to park my car in the village at the bottom of the first hill in the morning just in case, so I can get groceries and drive the last part in the evening (I have snow socks for the tyres and they are great).

I've dug out the driveway plenty of times to be able to get the car out, and the cul de sac a few times (sometimes alone, often there are a few neighbours doing it together).

School and work have been closed a few times over the years (I mentioned a week off in primary already, and DD has had a few times when her school have closed). But DD's school also had a "snow team" of parents organised - we'd go in early in the morning (7.30am), shovel out the paths and salt them, and school would have a 1 hour delay starting (9.30am) but would happen. Which the kids hated when most of their friends were off for days on end and they had to go in - but they also had a lot of fun with it rather than being bored at home. And us parents always enjoyed a quick hot coffee from the staffroom to defrost at the end of our efforts before heading to work.

yh this year

Lots of times. We’re very high up.

I regularly get snowed in. If near Christmas I subsist on mince pies, Stilton and red wine until the snow melts and I can get to the shops.
I always keep a stash of long life milk and bread flour in case.