Snowbound

This has been a busy few days. The official total from the weather report in Sylva, which is thirty miles away and about 2000 feet lower, was 12 inches. They didn't come up into the mountains to measure (nor, very quickly, could they have; nor could they yet!). Here's my last measurement before I gave up, midday sometime:

I still can't get to the road except on foot, but the temperature has broken freezing. Up til now, the only melting has been from direct sunlight, plus some sublimation. Now we might actually see some progress. The roads will refreeze tonight when it gets back down below freezing, though.

NCDOT issued an order mid-day that no chemical/salt treatments of roads were to be done except in response to a direct need by emergency services. Naturally that meant that, when an emergency occurred, there was a good chance the treatment was too late to do much good. There was a two-alarm fire over to Cashiers/Sapphire; it sounds like they had a very interesting time getting fire engines to it. 

The power was out for quite some time, but the blessed and honorable linemen got it on very early Monday. I take it that means that the state highway was cleared enough to let them access the power station and maybe clear some downed lines. 

It's been quite an adventure.