{"id":7975,"date":"2014-02-01T19:20:45","date_gmt":"2014-02-02T00:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/?p=7975"},"modified":"2014-02-08T20:14:13","modified_gmt":"2014-02-09T01:14:13","slug":"snowjam-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/?p=7975","title":{"rendered":"SnowJam 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

January 28, 2014 is a day that many in our area will never forget. \u00a0There was a prediction of snow flurries with the possibility of slight accumulation. \u00a0Most of the snow was predicted to hit south of the city. \u00a0My Tuesday morning started out really early as some of our teachers and I were visiting another Christian school in Atlanta. \u00a0We left NCCS early in the morning and chatted a bit about our thoughts on whether or not the snow would ever pan out. \u00a0When we arrived at the school we were visiting, one of their high school guys was getting out of his mom’s car carrying a sled “just in case”. \u00a0We decided quickly that we liked his style!<\/p>\n

We finished up our visit at the school and headed back towards NCCS a few minutes after 10:00. \u00a0As we were driving north on I-75, snow flurries started and they were pretty heavy. \u00a0We swung through Starbucks and headed back to school arriving a few minutes before 11:00. \u00a0Ten minutes later there was a class change and all of our kids were so excited! \u00a0By then the snow was really falling and starting to accumulate all around. \u00a0By 11:30 we made the announcement that we would be dismissing school at 12:30pm. \u00a0The only thing cooler than getting a snow day? \u00a0Being the principal that gets to make the announcement to the kids that we are getting a snow day! \u00a0The place practically erupted with excitement!<\/p>\n

Clint and I had talked that morning and agreed that he would come and pick Emma up if we dismissed early since I’d have to wait until all my students were picked up to head home. \u00a0I gave him a quick call at 11:30 and he hopped in the car to head to school. \u00a0He was even kind enough to take my lunch order to grab me some Chick-fil-A on his way.<\/p>\n

At 12:20, I headed out front to help with carline. \u00a0As I passed our food services manager, I jokingly asked her “What’s for dinner?” \u00a0By this time the Lower School students were in the gym waiting for their folks to pick them up. \u00a0As soon as I got out to carline, you could tell that this snow was much more than anyone anticipated. \u00a0We ran carline for 30 minutes and only a small handful of our students were picked up. \u00a0At 1:00 we had all the remaining middle and upper school students head to the gym to stay warm and dry. \u00a0Our Fine Arts Director, Matthew, and I stood outside and greeted parents for a long time after that as they made their way into the parking lot. \u00a0Some people had been in traffic at that point already for over an hour and were telling us crazy stories about the roads surrounding school. \u00a0Matthew and I realized that this was going to be a long day.<\/p>\n

After a while, we came up with a plan to shuttle students in groups of 4 or less up to the Citgo gas station on the corner of our campus so that their parents wouldn’t have to drive down the icy drive on our campus. \u00a0That made for some fun for a few hours. \u00a0The snow was beautiful and it really kept snowing for a long time! \u00a0Traffic on the highway in front of our school quickly backed up and the gas station on the corner of our campus had a long wait for all of their gas pumps.<\/p>\n

Remember that Clint left our house at 11:30am? \u00a0It’s normally about a 15 minute drive from our house to school…anytime of day. \u00a0Clint arrived a few minutes before 2:30pm. \u00a0He had some really crazy stories of all of the traffic that he had encountered on the way. \u00a0By that point, we all had reports of NCCS parents stranded all around town. \u00a0We still had close to 250 kids at school and the cars coming through to pick kids up dwindled to about 1 car per 10 minutes. \u00a0The talk of what to serve for dinner picked back up and we were all excited to hear that we were having hot dogs! \u00a0We also started talking about overnight plans as it was pretty evident that some folks would be staying the night. \u00a0By the way…we are not a boarding school, so spending the night there is not a normal thing! \u00a0But…the afternoon definitely made for a fun adventure!<\/p>\n

Around 6pm, we announced that food was available in the cafeteria. \u00a0They didn’t want to say “dinner” because they didn’t want any of the little kids to be worried. \u00a0Of course, our Emma cleared that up pretty quickly. \u00a0All the aftercare workers said “Y’all come sit down for your snack.” \u00a0Emma quickly responded, “This isn’t a snack…it’s dinner, it’s dark outside.” \u00a0Fortunately no kids seemed too scarred by that! \u00a0Emma was having a blast hanging at school with her friends and her favorite teachers. \u00a0Clint had decided just to stay at school after his crazy trip there. \u00a0We figured it would be best if the three of us stuck together at that point.<\/p>\n

After dinner we started seeing more folks working together on Facebook and Twitter to coordinate rides and the best routes around town. \u00a0Several people in 4 wheel drive vehicles came by school to give people rides. \u00a0My assistant and friend Patti decided that she and her daughter and her daughter’s friend would make a run for it. \u00a0They got about a 1\/2 mile down the road in a little over an hour and were stranded. \u00a0Patti called me, so I told her we would come rescue them in the golfcart. \u00a0One of our facilities staff guys Graeme headed out with me. \u00a0As we got on the side of the highway to rescue Patti, we saw a ton of people walking up and down the street. \u00a0It was almost eerie…tons of people walking in an area that doesn’t normally see people walking, snow everywhere, traffic totally backed up, and no idea how this was all going to turn out. \u00a0There were a lot of families walking and Graeme and I offered to give folks a lift down the road. \u00a0They told us to keep going that there was a man with a baby up ahead. \u00a0We sped up and sure enough…there was a man with a baby and a little boy…none of them had on coats and they were obviously very cold and had a long way to go.<\/p>\n

I called Patti and told them to stay in their car while we helped some folks out. \u00a0Graeme and I picked up the man and his kids by the football field on the edge of the NCCS campus. \u00a0We asked him where he was headed and he asked us to take him down to the corner. \u00a0He had run out to pick his kids up from daycare almost 7 hours earlier and they had to abandon their car in order to get home to feed the baby. \u00a0The baby was 4 months old. \u00a0Graeme and I got him to the corner and told him that we couldn’t leave him there. \u00a0He told us he lived around the corner and we told him we’d be happy to take him there. \u00a0In the end, he lived about 2 miles from where we originally picked him up. \u00a0I really don’t think they ever would have made it. \u00a0Graeme and I were so excited that God gave us the opportunity to drop this sweet family off right at their doorstep.<\/p>\n

We headed back towards school and picked up Patti and the girls. \u00a0One humorous thing about that…we got them down the road a bit and then the golfcart started running out of juice. \u00a0We all had to get out and push, but finally we hit the downhill and coasted back to the warm and dry school building. \u00a0We were all full of stories to share with our friends back at school!<\/p>\n

Over the next few hours, more 4 wheel drive angels came by and drove folks home. \u00a0Around 12:30am, it was pretty evident that we were set with about 15-20 people that were going to spend the night at school. \u00a0Most of them were by choice as they had battled traffic for several hours already and just wanted to get a good night’s rest. \u00a0All of my high schoolers had been picked up by around 9:30pm and fortunately we had heard good reports of folks making it home safely after several hours in the car.<\/p>\n

Clint, Emma, our friend Rachel, and I all decided we would go for it and try to get home. \u00a0Just as we were headed out, the Acworth Police Chief…a good friend…stopped by school to check on all of us. \u00a0He gave us an official road report and then we hit the road at 1am. \u00a0We had a little trouble getting out of the parking lot and then finally got out on the roads. \u00a0Highway 41 was clear and we made great time getting most of the way towards our house. \u00a0Unfortunately both Highway 92 and Cedarcrest were parking lots…stalled and abandoned cars, wrecked cars, and folks sliding around. \u00a0Those are the main two ways to our house, so we started out to find another route. \u00a0Our good friend Leigh Ann was texting the whole time to check on us. \u00a0She said she was going to stay up until we made it home safely.<\/p>\n

We headed back over towards Mars Hill and then cut over to Acworth Due West and then Stilesboro through Brookstone. \u00a0We made it to the back of Brookstone before we got stuck on an icy hill around 2:30am. \u00a0We got it turned around and then got stuck again. \u00a0Our friend Leigh Ann offered to come and rescue us since we were less than a mile from their house. \u00a0We got stuck again and parked our car and walked up to where the Geter’s had parked their warm Expedition (aka winter weather rescue wagon) at the top of the hill to take us to their house. \u00a0We got to their house around 3:15am. \u00a0They quickly got us all settled and tucked in for the night…what was left of it that is!<\/p>\n

At 8am our Headmaster texted me and asked me to put the word out that the folks at school needed some 4 wheel drives to come pick them up and take them home. \u00a0I put the word out on Twitter and Facebook and so did Leigh Ann. About 10 minutes later, he said to call off the 4WD roundup as everyone had a ride home. \u00a0The school was cleared out by 9:15am almost 24 hours after the snow had originally started.<\/p>\n

We enjoyed some snow day waffles at the Geters and then our awesome neighbor Corrie Jones came and rescued us in her Jeep. \u00a0It was really crazy to see how icy the roads still were as we slowly made our way home. \u00a0Later than afternoon Corrie took me back to rescue our car and I was able to drive it home. \u00a0We spend the remainder of the afternoon sledding, making snowmen, and having a wonderful family snow day! \u00a0We cancelled classes the next two days also because there was still a ton of snow and ice all around town.<\/p>\n

So…going back to our skepticism on Tuesday morning about the predicted snow flurries? \u00a0After 3 inches of snow and 3 1\/2 snow days…we all survived Snow Jam 2014. \u00a0So grateful that folks were safe and we really have some fun memories of this crazy adventure!<\/p>\n

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January 28, 2014 is a day that many in our area will never forget. \u00a0There was a prediction of snow flurries with the possibility of slight accumulation. \u00a0Most of the snow was predicted to hit south of the city. \u00a0My Tuesday morning started out really early as some of our teachers and I were visiting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,16,19,18,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-emma","category-family","category-funny","category-north-cobb-christian","category-travel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7975\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}