Carmegeddon

Yesterday, I was working in one of our Chantilly offices until about 2 pm. At that point, I decided to head home because the weather report was calling for a snowstorm to roll in starting about 4 pm. I didn't want to get caught out in it, and I am set up to work from home. So I packed up my proposal, and I headed to my house.

The weather predictors were right on the money with this one. About 4:30 pm, I heard this noise that sounded like my cats getting into something in the kitchen. I got up to follow the noise and realized that it was sleet and hail on my deck making that weird noise. It was coming down really hard and really fast. I quickly emailed my colleagues that I knew were still in the office to get out while they could. But there was a part of me that felt like maybe I was overreacting to the news. Could it be that my weeks of working at home have made me gun-shy for being out in bad weather? A little sleet, a little hail. Not all that bad. And about a half hour after it started, the hail and sleet had turned into rain. Now, I really thought I'd overreacted.

Until about a half an hour after that when the snow was blowing so hard that it looked like it was falling horizontally. It was amazing to watch - quite beautiful actually. I posted about the snow on Facebook, and a few other friends indicated that they were heading home.

Later in the evening, other friends started posting about long commutes. Hours and hours spent on the road. This morning, I heard from several friends who had ridiculously long commutes home. My nephew-in-law, for instance, had a 5-hour commute to go 6 miles. He could have walked faster. Another friend, who is a labor and delivery nurse, couldn't have left even if she'd wanted to. Because her relief couldn't get to the hospital. Another friend didn't get home until after midnight, despite having left downtown DC at 6 pm. And a few friends ventured out to try to get home, only to turn around and go back to the office and spend the night there.

They're dubbing this storm "Carmegeddon" because of the number of abandoned cars by the side of the road. I no longer feel stupid for having left the office when I did. I'm just grateful that I made myself do it.