October Snowstorm: A Personal Reflection

I've never been one to write first-person stories.

It's not that I don't believe in that kind of story — some of the best articles, features and books I've read have been written in the first person (Jim Bouton's Ball Four and Stefan Fatsis' A Few Seconds of Panic immediately come to mind, not to mention our own columnists on Patch including Cami Beiter and Ron Goralski) — but I've always felt, as a journalist, that I shouldn't be part of the story unless there are very extraordinary circumstances involved.

Why should you, the readers, be interested in what I have to say? I’m here to report on other people, places and things — if you want first-person stories, there are plenty of bloggers, columnists and essayists willing to meet that need.

With that in mind, this is one of the few times I've felt at least somewhat comfortable writing about a personal experience.

For me, the Oct. 2011 snowstorm was, at turns, a source of fear, a trial, a challenge, a test of character, an inconvenience, a chance to help others and, perhaps most gratifyingly, a chance to truly serve the community.

I remember being too cold to sleep, being unable to get to certain parts of town and unable to find food in the local area — a big change for someone spoiled by living minutes from Route 75 in Windsor Locks, which is a hotbed of fast food and convenience stores.

My car was stuck in the mud by my home at the time immediately following the storm. I parked there to avoid leaving under a tree that ended up falling over (although losing my 2001 Pontiac Grand Am and getting the insurance moneywouldn’t have been all that bad, in retrospect). Because so many cars were stranded on state roads and highways, I couldn’t get my car towed out for about 48 hours after the first snowfall. I was stranded without much besides the most basic rations.

Even after I got my car back on the road, I remember having a busted headlight (It went out during the storm and, of course, no auto parts stores were open those first few, crazy days), significantly less than a quarter-tank of gas and a growing fear that I wouldn't find a gas station before I ran out of fuel on the side streets of Windsor Locks, miles from home. A decision to turn tail and try again the next day was fortuitous, despite waiting in line for more than two hours to fill up in East Windsor.

Even so, I was lucky. For others, the storm was life-threatening, life-altering and, although I didn't encounter the circumstances myself while covering the town of Suffield for Suffield Patch in Oct. 2011, life-ending.

Covering Suffield at the time and living in Windsor Locks, I got power back after only six days, possibly the result of living near Bradley International Airport — a very short period as compared the amount of time many others in Granby, East Granby, Suffield and beyond had to deal with a lack of electricity.

I now live in my mother's old house in Simsbury, so as to be closer to Granby and East Granby. My mom lost power for 14 full days and the property still bears many scars of the storm a year later. My mom ended up sleeping on the floor of my grandmother's apartment in senior housing in Newington, where generators kept one of the more vulnerable populations safe.

But to get back to the truly personal aspect of this piece — the whole point, really — the most satisfying part of the storm was providing information to Patch readers. Not just information people liked to read or wanted to read, but information they needed to read, passed along by town officials and gathered by myself and other intrepid Patch reporters. We grew as a company during those weeks as more and more people knew they could get to Patch on their smart phones and find out where to get food, gas, power outlets, clean water and much more, while newspaper distribution was at times spotty and TVs weren’t always reliable.

Visiting the community shelter in Suffield days before the local elections showed me that, when times got really rough, people were (mostly) willing to put aside their political differences to help each other.

That willingness to help others despite our differences, to go beyond what seems so important as an election looms — to ensure the safety and wellbeing of your fellow human beings no matter your differences in politics, ethics, ethnicity, race, religion, gender, sexual preference or anything else that sets one person apart from another — that’s the lesson that’s stuck with me ever since.