Athena's hitting us hard. We've already got more snow at 10PM than was predicted for the whole night. I've heard reports from several customers that some of the towns have re-lost power. We had a nice blue ball of light and about thirty seconds of darkness before the generators kicked in at work, then power came back and flickered on and off for a while before stabilizing. On the plus side, the wind isn't as strong as predicted - so no blizzard, just wet, heavy snow.

I kept having to run out to the parking lot, in the snow, to grab more carts to put at refunds.  I kept giving my dry ones to customers.  Whatever I can do to make it easier on everyone, y'know?  The rug at that entrance was soaked by the end of the night, especially after the power flickers killed the heaters and I didn't have the giant door heater to put the carts in front of.  (Rosa had better not have anything to say about puddles at returns in the morning.  She's lucky Caroline and I went outside and got carts at all.)  The power also killed the automatic doors.  We had some panicky people when they found the door wouldn't open and they really needed snow shovels and firewood.

Oh, and when the snow plows finally showed up, one of them broke down a couple hours later.  The poor guy couldn't lift the plow blade, but when he borrowed a wrench and managed to get the broken part free, it was a specialty part we don't carry.  AND we had just closed.  I left him with a manager to see if they could jury-rig something that could get the blade lifted so he could get back to somewhere he could get it repaired.  I hope they found something.

I met a guy who drove from Wisconsin to volunteer. He wasn't any happier than we were to have to deal with all the slushy snow. It's cool to see so many people from all over the country coming to help.

We weren't really ready for the snow, though. No salt on the roads, plows slow to get into action. I couldn't really see the lines on the roads driving home and had to rely on tire tracks to stay in my lane. And something must be wrong with the 35/36 intersection, because there were cones forcing us to take the u-turn away from it. Luckily the back way home was traveled enough that I could drive it and the lights were working.