snowstorm!!! and camp NIH

(left) sure it looks pretty...

(right) don't I look super excited to be a part of this record-breaking snowfall?

So.. a huge blizzard rolled into town this weekend, and I spent that time as an "essential employee" at the hospital. This meant that I had to be there, and I couldn't go home because the weather and roads would have been too bad for me to be able to make it back into work. About 30 inches fell from Friday evening at 7pm until 5pm on Saturday. There was about 3-4 inches of snow falling every hour. That's a lot of snow even by Michigan standards! And, this area is not equipped to deal with that. The snow plows worked really hard day and night to clear the snow and DC and MD were ready, but one of the biggest problems is that there is nowhere to put the snow because the area is very hilly and full of apartment complexes. The Washington Post and the President of the United States (and he's from Chicago) called the blizzard "Snowmageddon."

(left) The group of us that weathered the storm on the 5SES night shift.

(right) Showing off our "golden tickets" that gave us a bed to sleep in at the hospital. There were barely enough for all of the staff!

I did not really see too much of the snow because the NIH campus is kind of its own little world. At first I thought that staying over at the hospital was super fun- like camp. I was actually calling it camp NIH- but after 24 hours here, it got old really fast (imagine what the patients feel like)! I worked 12 hours on Friday night into Saturday morning and then slept in a room at the hospital.

The fine spread of snacks left for us by our manager

They put all of the staff up in empty patient rooms so that we could sleep and have a shower. I had brought all of my stuff with me and food to eat for the weekend so I was pretty much set. I ended up staying on the psych floor. I kind of wonder if they are trying to tell me something. (Most of you are probably nodding your heads yes). Anyways, when we got to the 7th floor- i was like, Hey! This is the psych floor, they are gonna kill us in our sleep." A different nurse told me, oh dont worry it's not like a real psych floor here (inferring these are not the complete loonies that will kill you in your sleep). However, when we were getting bed sheets and things from the floor's stockroom, I pointed out to the other nurse, "If this isn't that kind of psych floor why is there a double-paned glassed in nurses station that the nurses can lock themselves in?" Needless to say, I am still alive and was not murdered in my sleep. Really, I was just joking- I like psych and was not all that worried. I slept really well actually (but then again, I can sleep just about anywhere).
The hospital bed was not bad and at least we got carpeted rooms on the psych floor. The shower was not all that great, but what can you say. Anyways, I then worked 12 hours on Saturday night. The group of us that was here for the weekend remained in good spirits and had a pretty good time.
However, i was over it come Sunday morning and headed home. There was so much snow! The roads were pretty good though, and I had no trouble getting back to my apartment.

(left) My barely traverseable (without snowshoes) parking lot

(right) The barely one lane road leading to my apartment complex- those are the unfortunate cars that were parked along the side of the road...

This brings us to where the trouble began. I pulled into my apartment complex and could not get past the driveway because absolutely no plowing had been done. All of the cars were surrounded by 3 feet + of snow, there were no parking spots (because no one could leave), and I would not have been able to get to a parking spot if I tried. I was tired so I just parked my Mailbu right there in the driveway with my phone number stuck to my windshield in case they needed me to move my car for the plows.
Later that day, I did have to move my car. They told me I would get towed if it was there when the plow trucks arrived. So, I moved it across the street to another apartment complex. Why were they plowed out and not me??? oh, and the plow trucks never came. But the bobcats did come at full force on Monday to save the day.