Six years ago, I was working at East Ridge Elementary School in Chattanooga. That school year I had volunteered to be on the social studies textbook committee where we would choose new textbooks to match the new state standards. Even though I was a librarian, I taught social studies lessons. I was also interested in how the process worked. On Tuesday, January 28th, I was with the group of about 25 teachers meeting in an old county building in St. Elmo, which sits at the base of Lookout Mountain, near the Incline Railway.

We started getting snow about mid-morning. Normally not a problem, but it had been cold for days. Weather models hadn’t shown snow, but as David Glenn of Channel 9 said, “Any flake that falls is not going to melt.” The flakes in St. Elmo were laying pretty thick by the time we were told schools were closing and kids were being sent home.

Chattanooga is a nightmare to get through, even during the best of times, having only one freeway that runs in each direction. I-24 runs east and west and begins where it meets I-75, which runs north and south. I didn’t even try getting home at that time. I figured I’d be lucky to get back to East Ridge Elementary. Traffic was already at a stand-still at the Ridge Cut. (That’s where I-24 goes through Missionary Ridge.) I finally made it up to East Ridge by getting off the interstate and going through the tunnel. Then I had to negotiate Ringgold Road, the main drag to the school. It took me an hour to get a mile. I finally parked at a drug store near the school and walked. While getting there a parent and I helped push a couple of cars unsuccessfully trying to negotiate the parking lot.

That was a problem all over the area, from Atlanta to north of Chattanooga. When school was called many roads were already impassable. Everyone was trying to get the heck out of Dodge, and pick up their kids before they did so.

I stayed and helped out at the school until about 3 o’clock, hoping by then the roads were a little better and I would be able to get home. By that time I-75 was passable and when I got off at Cleveland, APD 40 was fair. It was when I got close to home that the real trouble started.

As you know, in East Tennessee, everyone either lives on top of a hill, at the bottom of a hill or on the side of a hill. We lived on top. I managed to make it within two houses of my own driveway, but it was getting dark as well as colder, so the car ended up in front of someone else’s house that night.

The next day, like the day before, was very cold and our streets are never plowed. It was later in the day before I dared to move my car. After backing all the way down to the bottom of the hill, I took a ‘running’ start and made it to our driveway.

When school re-opened on Monday, the principal said the last child was picked up sometime around seven p.m. on the day of ‘Snowmageddon.’ What really amazed me was that when the cafeteria workers were told about the cancellation of school on Tuesday, they fixed lunch and fed 1000 children in approximately half an hour. They were not going to let their babies go home hungry. They had just finished when I finally trudged in the building.

There were several snow days taken after that, even when the weathermen said there was just a slight possibility.

Despite all these snow horror stories of late, author Susan Kite loves the snow—from her living room window. She is the author of four books from World Castle Publishing, one self-published book, one in pre-publication from Doodle and Peck Publishing, and a novelette being illustrated for Bold Venture Press. She is also a member of Author’s Guild of Tennessee. The link to her author’s web site: www.bookscape.net