The aftermath

As many of you said you had heard about our storm I thought you might be interested in an eye witness account.

When I wrote about the storm yesterday it was far from over. We were lucky in that our power was not affected like many of those in Rapid City. By the time the snow stopped and the wind died down we were left with 3 to 4 foot snow drifts throughout our driveway and yard. I have blogged in the past about the incredible wind driven snow drifts that we are cursed with enjoy here in South Dakota. Because of the wind and the drifts it is hard to say how much snow we really got. Parts of our yard were blown clear while in other areas the snow was higher than my kids.

We ventured outside yesterday afternoon when the sun came out. We put Jordan to work clearing the snow out from around the cars while Scott and I dug a neighbor out.

We then all piled into our Suburban (I love 4 wheel drive!) and went to rescue a family from our church who had been totally snowed in. Along the way we saw several abandoned cars stuck in the snow. I wish I would have taken pictures once we got to our friends house. Their drift was unbelievably huge and deep. It took 5 of us to dig out their driveway enough that they could drive through it. That was after Scott drove into a snow drift and we had to dig him out. "I'll just drive over it and pack it down". Yeah, that was a brilliant idea! ;) The snow was so deep that I couldn't even open my door to get out of the car. Men! (if you click on the link, scroll down to the last paragraph of the post)

After we dug our friends out we headed to the shop where Scott works. Though the roads were fairly clear by then, Rapid City had all but shut down earlier in the day. Most businesses were closed. Even McDonalds was closed. We did notice that most of the pizza places were opened as well as several bars and mini casinos (video lottery is legal in SD). At least as South Dakotans we have our priorities straight. Beer, pizza and gambling are apparently high priorities.

These next pictures are from this morning. The kids are having so much fun in the snow. Another nice thing about spring snow storms is that it is not as cold outside.

We have a couple of plum trees that actually started to bud when we had our 80 degree weather earlier last week. Hopefully they will make it.
Today we are grateful for the warmer weather, but now they are issuing flood watches. There is always something!