[Coco] snow-day story

[Roger Taylor]

At 08:52 AM 12/18/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>Roger,
>   Your welcome to come to West Virginia. We have all the snow you would 
> need to get over the xmax season. We are
>expecting a white xmas with snow xmas eve and day.
>
>John Donaldson


Heres a snow-day story...  actually, a snow-week story...


In Louisiana, we would give quite a bit to have the same.  White 
Christmas'es around here are rare, but we do tend to get some real nasty 
snow/ice storms like the one from a few years back that shut down life for 
over 2 weeks, and over a month for less fortunate backwoods dwellers.

A valuable lesson was learned by thousands and thousands of electric 
company workers... and that lesson was: trees grow bigger.  The sides of 
the roads covering several states, including Texas, Arkansas, LA, and no 
telling how many other neighbors were covered with snapped and bent trees 
that just sat right down on top of the power lines.  Oops, lights out for 
everybody at the same time.

Ice and snow kept coming in constantly, and you could hear large trees 
snapping over like twigs all day long and all through the night, for 
days.  It sounded like shotguns being fired one after another.

Here's the kicker:

On the first wave of this, I somehow managed to convince myself that I need 
to attempt to go into work.  Remember, the skies were solid gray, there was 
no electricity across most of several states,  trees were blocking the 
roadways, sometimes laying right across the road making it impossible to 
cross, and everything was completely covered with snow and ice.  Nobody was 
on the road, but me!

So I'm easing into work slowly but surely, sliding all over the road almost 
going in the ditches, not worried about how long it would take because 
surely the company (if they were there) would understand.  The trip in was 
an adventure to say the least.  It took over an hour to cover 3 miles.  And 
just as I drove into "town" I noticed that absolutely nobody was stirring, 
there were no vehicles that were not completely covered with ice, no 
business was happening whatsoever.  Why would it?  I mean, it's not even 
safe to stand still in this storm, so everybody was in this together and 
dealing with it in their own way.  Just about 1/4 mile from the Coke plant 
where I worked, I decided to turn around and ease back home to make sure my 
kids and wife were safe.  To heck with an empty workplace.

Well... the next morning power was being revived in town only, so some 
businesses were trying to come back, so the Coke plant was 
stirring.  However, not a single speckle of snow had melted, and only more 
had piled on.  I remember coming in ontime and being asked immediately, 
"did you try to come in yesterday?"  "Why didn't you call?"

The nerve!  My chin dropped and I knew I was dreaming.

The phone lines were off in my area.  There was no activity 
whatsoever.  This was something I had never seen, just calmness for miles 
and miles, except for the snapping trees.  It turns out that EVERYBODY but 
me and a few other employees actually drove into work (some drove from 15 
miles away) and tried to deliver CoCa-Cola products to the town just like 
it's a normal day.  I was not believing this.  Here I am, an employee who 
never got sick over 8 years, and rarely took off for anything, etc. etc. 
telling the company that they were crazy.  The nerve of this man to think 
that we were actually able to help our community in some way by firing up 
the Coke vehicles and "gettin' out there and doin' business" in this 
unbelieveable winter storm that had at least 4 states shut down.

They never left the plant.  They just sat there all day looking out the 
window, drinking coffee, and hoping it would go away.  By the time they 
realized, hey... this is serious!  :)  it was too late.  The stories were 
told that 2 high-ranking employees, my supervisors at the time, didn't 
quite make it to their homes.  One had to abandon his vehicle and hitch a 
ride atop a tractor for a few miles.  Awww.  And the other one got almost 
to his house and slid off into the ditch in his brand new truck he bragged 
about all the time.  Awww.

So, do you think this could have contributed to their anger for employees 
who couldn't make it in?  Sure it did.
Anyway, that blew over with the snowstorm, so no hard feelings were kept, 
as far as I know. :)

This has been another... snow-day story.


----------
Roger Taylor


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