The storm of the century?

On October 29th my family gathered together at my father's home in Belchertown, Massachusetts for the celebration of my nephew's 15th birthday. At around 3pm we noticed a white haze outside of the windows. My husband and I looked at eachother and said "Snow? In OCTOBER?"

By the time we packed up our family and went home for the night, it was a full blown snow storm. The usual 15 minute drive from Belchertown to our home in Palmer, Ma. took us what seemed an eternity. In my lifetime I've seen many snow storms, I've driven in horrendous road conditions. This was, by far, the scariest car ride of my life. Our vehicle spun out of control at one point, trees were falling in the roads behind us and it seemed every usual road to take to our home was blocked off. I found myself thinking to myself "this is what Stephen King books are made of". We came upon a tree that had fallen in the road in front of us only to realized there was a car underneath.

This was no ordinary storm.

As we drove further towards our house, taking detours at almost every turn it seemed, something started to dawn on me. None of the houses we passed had lights on. Street lights were out and by the time we got into the center of our town, the traffic lights were also out. As we approached our house we discovered two things. 1. The road was blocked by trees on the right side of our driveway and the house was dark. We had no power. We decided to go inside and see how long it would take for the power to come back on. By midnight we were freezing, the power was still out and decided we needed to get our children, ages 5 months and 3 years out of there and into somewhere warm. Until we heard a crash. Another tree had come down in our road, on the left side of our driveway this time, blocking us in entirely. We couldn't leave if we wanted to. So, we blew up an air matress, took every blanket and flashlight we owned and all huddled up in our living room. It was one of the most terrifying nights of my life. You could hear the trees snapping and falling constantly in what seemed every direction. I prayed none would hit our house. We still had cell service at that point and learned that a tree, had in fact fallen on my fathers house. What damage it caused was still unknown at that point. Thankfully, nobody was hurt.

At six am the next morning my husband was outside with a handsaw cutting up the trees that had fallen in the road blocking us in. We still had  no power and had been told it would be 3-7 days until we were restored.

Each side of our driveway blocking us in on both sides. 

After what seemed an eternity my husband was able to clear away most of the fallen trees, limbs and branches on the left side and we were able to leave. I hadn't been outside yet and was greeted with a real mess of the outside of our home.

I had seen enough and just wanted to get out of there. We decided to drive to Belchertown to check on my fathers house. During our travels we realized things weren't looking any better anywhere else.

In Palmer

The Belchertown Common

Last, but not least, my father's house.

Tree that fell in front of the front shed

My brother's car is somwhere under there!

The trees that hit the house and took out the back deck.

We now know that the tree also hit the roof and side of the house. There is currently a hole in the roof over a foot and half wide that opens directly into my fathers bedroom.

Our power was not restored until Thursday November 3rd. We were fortunate that we were not one of the people from Belchertown that had to wait until Saturday or Sunday to have it restored. On Friday November 4th, Massachusetts Govenor Deval Patrick paid a visit to the town of Belchertown

Christine Molloy of Belchertown, also has much to say about the situation. And, a news website from the UK, DailyMail even picked up the story.

If this storm is any indication of what this winter has in store for us it's going to be a long season!