A surprise storm

We had two "winter weather events" last week.

Two in one week.

In the south, that is cause for people to flip out.

What happened on Friday was a giant mess, that wasn't really predicted.

Thursday most weather forecasts talked about a wintery mix over-night, into Friday morning.  "Might be a little messy getting to work on Friday..."

That was an understatement.

Thursday the sleet began around 5:30 (during basketball practice).

And it kept sleeting, and sleeting, and sleeting.

I woke up several times during the night hearing the sleet get blown against the house....

And by Friday morning, we had several inches of sleet on the ground, a glaze of ice covering the trees, and snow falling......and falling, and falling.

And limbs and power lines began to fall.

We were very fortunate to be juuuuust far enough north of the ice that fell on most of the Piedmont the rest of Friday.  We wound up with almost 6 inches, and thankfully did not loose power.

Unlike the rest of the Piedmont.

Kevin's office was without power Friday.  And his network/server still is not functioning properly.

At the peak of the mess on Friday, close to 250,000 in our area were without power.

Some still do not have electricity, and it might be Wednesday until everyone has service restored.

Wow.

At our house the snow/sleet finally tapered off around 4.  Kieran took the dogs outside & snapped these pictures.

 Flopsy was the only one excited about more snow.  She ate a bit, threw up, then tried to sniff out some voles (her new favorite pastime).

 Kevin took the trusty Subaru out to get a pizza for dinner.  The pizza place had power & was doing brisk business.

 And dear Loch....  "Wait.....don't leave me out here!"

 See the look of terror in his eyes?

 The door is in sight.

We drove into town yesterday for church.  What a huge mess.  It will be a while before a lot of this gets cleaned up.  Lines down, trees hanging onto/over roads, houses & cars damaged, houses flooded....
Thoughts & prayers to those still without power, and to those who have been working around the clock to restore power.