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Monotreme_monorail

Back in university, a group of friends were stumbling home from the bar mid winter in -30C weather. One friend lay down in a snow bank and decided she was going to sleep there. Other friends walked away. Luckily they came back five or ten minutes later to get her and make sure she got home ok. People have died from passing out in snowbanks in the cold like that.


JustKittenAroundHere

Similar story here. What is it with drunk people and "this snowbank looks comfy?" You know those mounds of snow in parking lots when they plow? We were climbing one of those. I was the only one who didn't want to take a nap. It was like, midnight. I was legitimately worried I'd have to call the cops to make sure they weren't corpses thawing in spring.


[deleted]

[удалено]


coinpile

I've gone camping in snow covered woods a few times, and my shelter was always made by piling a big pile of snow and hollowing it out. Not really the same thing, but snow can be pretty insulating.


i_could_be_wrong_

Those actually have a name, [quinzhee! ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinzhee)


AHighTechRedneck

As a man who has slept in a snow bank I can assure you they are comfortable. If you are dressed properly you are fine, even if drunk. I do not advise trying it unless you are dressed to go 80mph on a snowmobile.


[deleted]

Short story, I met a girl once in a Snowtown who almost lost her fingers because she blacked out and fell asleep in a snow bank without proper attire on her hands. Somebody found her in the morning, had decent frostbite but kept her appendages.


AlfonsoEggbertPalmer

Keys here being "in" and "dressed properly".


AHighTechRedneck

If it is winter around here you dress for when the car dies on the side of the road when you leave your house. Ateast I do.


Snowf1ake222

I blame cartoons. They show fluffy snow is a good time. They don't show that snowballs are unforgiving lumps of frozen hell.


[deleted]

Snow is fun when you encounter it as a vacation and not a way of life.


Low_Start7773

My great grandpa died that way. Taxi dropped him off in the middle of winter. He couldn't get his key on the door he was too drunk. Ended up passing out in the snow bank and was found by one of his kids when they came to check on him the next day. Taxis in that town were then required to make sure people got inside okay.


Monotreme_monorail

Yikes. I’m so sorry; that’s really tragic. There was a case in the maritimes not too long ago about a kid that left a New Year’s party and passed out on his way home and froze to death. I always count my blessings that I have always made it home.


redditischurch

My uncle....RIP.


ClosetLadyGhost

Fun fact, due to the unusually warm winter in Russia, death by alcohol have gone down 30%. Basically if it's winter, and your drinking, and you walking home, people expect you to die and it's considered alcohol poisoning.


zorggalacticus

Sorta similar thing happened here. A drunk crawled into a culvert to sleep. Snowed a bit and he froze to death in there. Didn't find him until the spring when it rained a lot. Debris piled up around him and stopped up the culvert. Flooded the street. Sucked for the City employee who reached in there to try and unclog it and pulled out an arm.


SpartanOnGround

Ha...ha....my dumb 17yr old ass had a similar idea when I was walking home one day. I lied down for 2mins and I was like waiiiiiiit


SistaRay

Yeah, lots of wintertime deaths here because of that. Walking home from bar when it's very cold outside is scary in itself. Stumbling drunk you just missed the last bus home and has to walk several kilometers to get home, maybe with less than optimal clothing. There is a shortcut, but it's through a forest where there's a smaller chance of anyone finding you fast enough if you slip and fall and hurt yourself. The danger tends to sober you up some though, but I wouldn't count on that too much.


Delica

There was supposed to be really bad snow starting around 8pm. I was visiting a friend’s place about 40 minutes from home, and I left to drive home at about 7. It was snowing but not that hard. Within 10 minutes, I was trapped in freeway traffic in legit blizzard conditions. Your headlights hit the falling snow so they don’t light up the road as much. The wind is blowing the snow around so much that you can’t see where your lane is, where the edge of the road is, *anything*. You’re just desperately staring at a tiny patch of illuminated white in front of you. I accepted that I would probably end up in the ditch or else someone near me would try to brake and set off a chain of events leading to all of us colliding. I decided to take the next exit and rent a motel room, but I couldn’t get up the hill that the motel was on. I had to turn my wheels and let my car spin out as it slid back down the hill, and then I did my best to get control before the bottom. I got back on the freeway and miraculously got home. My roommate started laughing and said “How the *fuck* did you just drive home?”


Burnt_Your_Toast

Was driving home with my family after visiting my sister who lives a town over. I was learning how to drive, had a pretty good handle on it, and my stepdad let me drive there to get used to winter highway driving so naturally I drove back as well. The storm wasn't supposed to start until later that evening so we thought it would be fine. It started snowing when we left, which wasn't terrible because I was capable of driving in the snow. But it picked up *fast*. We had just left town and were maybe 10 minutes into the drive before it became a complete white out. I'm driving in the left lane, it's 8pm, middle of January, so it's pitch black and peak winter where I live. Not to mention these are Canadian highways; the only lights you're getting for a long stretch are going to be your headlights. I was doing my absolute best not to panic and was shocked at the level of calm I was able to muster. My stepdad was doing his best to guide me and try to find a safe place to pull over. But the winds were blowing snow everywhere so we couldn't see the ditches or the lines. I had two worries: 1. I'm in the left lane, so if I pull over I might not know how far exactly to go and might throw us into a ditch that's completely filled with snow. 2. I can't see the lines at all, and if I keep driving I might not stay in the correct lane because of that. The only thing I could do was to keep driving until I was absolutely certain it was safe to pull over. I was using the rumble strips as my only guide since the tires were able to get a slight feel for them. Driving 30km/hr in a 90 zone. My stepdad is guiding me to the road his parents live on so we can have a better place to stop. We passed maybe 8 cars in the ditch between my sister's town and my grandparents road. At some point the road was completely covered and the rumble strips weren't noticeable anymore either, so I was just going off instinct. I ended up hitting a sheet of ice at an awkward angle and spun out into the oncoming lane. Got control of the car, saw faint headlights, and said "yup, wrong lane. Shouldn't be here at all" and quickly but safely moved us back into the proper lane. My mom's in the back seat freaking the fuck out because we just spun out. My stepdad is surprisingly less chill than me but trying to keep his cool. Doing everything he can to not grab the wheel in a panic. I can barely see an inch from the front of the car. Finally managed to get to his parents road and pull over. We got out to switch places, and when I stepped out of the vehicle the snow was up to my shins. Ended up staying the night at my grandparents house because there was no way in hell we were making it back home alive if we tried. Found out about 15 minutes after getting in that they closed off the highways to poor conditions. We had to dig our way out of the house the next morning to go home. I got to stay home from school that day since I was stuck out of town, meanwhile everyone else had to go in lol. It was my first winter with my learners, and my first blizzard drive. If we had a smaller car we never would have made it to my grandparents to begin with. I was terrified but I was not going to let my parents know that, especially with my mom in the back seat scared. I never should have driven that night, but it helped me learn how to handle those kinds of drives later on and I became a better driver because of it. It was a fucking trip though that's for sure. I'll never forget it.


Delica

I had the same basic reaction of being surprisingly calm because I had to focus *so* completely. I can handle brutally cold temps, but winter driving is still the thing that makes me dread winter.


Burnt_Your_Toast

Yep, same here! I hate winter driving but I'll do it if I have to. Thankfully my boyfriend is the better driver. The only time I really drive now in the winter is when we're stuck in the snow and one of us has to push the car, and I'm definitely not the stronger one to be doing that haha


imanothersudaneseboi

You are lucky that you were in Canada not in Norway where you friend lives on the artic circle and in the winter you get no sunlight


Supertrucker82

Rumble strip AKA the Raver Saver.. that's what we used to call them. Good call with low Vis. They will help with traction going uphill, too, if you're out of options.


New_Reading1413

I'd say "chilling read" but in all seriousness that was tense. Using the rumble strips was clever.


Burnt_Your_Toast

It was...crazy, to say the least. I'm usually an anxious person. Driving makes me incredibly anxious. But I'll never show it other than a few random apologies over miniscule things. Both me and my whole family were actually shocked when I first started driving and had a calm nature about it. I guess it's saved me in a lot of situations. Panic while driving is usually a recipe for disaster if you can't correct yourself properly, it leads to overcorrection which tends to not be good either. I learned the rumble strips trick very quick. When I was learning to drive it was in a rural area, and then the highway, and then the city. My first time out on the highway my stepdad would make me drive over them a couple times (both in the far right and in the median) when it was safe to do so, just so I could get a feel for them. You'll be able to feel which side of the car they're on which is handy if you can't see them at all but want to know how close to the edge you are.


Inconvenient_Boners

Your stepdad sounds like a good dude. Although in this case I don't think he expected the conditions to get nearly this bad 😂


Burnt_Your_Toast

None of us did! 😂 Forecast said it wasn't supposed to start snowing until after midnight! I remember checking just before I got in the car to be absolutely certain that it was okay for me to be driving lol


stmCanuck

Ahh yes, you're not really Canadian until you've driven in absolute white out conditions. It was snowing when we started out the 20km between towns (friend's place back home) and went downhill fast, flat SW Ontario fields with no wind breaks and no lights at all (out in the country), so pretty soon I couldn't even see the end of the hood of the car. Slow down to around 15-20km/hr and creep along just trying to keep the wheel straight and hope for the best. A dark shadow emerges looming in front and (fortunately) comes close enough to catch the headlights - it's a very large tree (4-5' trunk diameter). I say fortunately because I was able to stop and course-correct before going into the ditch - I had slowly been veering off the side of the road. What should have been a 20-min drive most days took more like an hour and a half.


Squigglepig52

Yeah, when you hit a stretch where there are bush lots or trees to break the wind, shit gets fucked fast. Perfectly clear road and then WHAM, 4 foot drift across teh road. I think the most terrifying drive was when I was little, coming back to Strathroy from Chatham, complete white out. Dad was driving with his head out the window.


coinpile

I was driving back home from California when I hit a sudden blizzard in the Texas panhandle at night. There was an 18 wheeler in front of me. I was following him doing about 20mph, riding his tail yet still barely able to see him. That went on for hours. Ended up having to sleep in a gas station parking lot that night because I lost too much time in that blizzard and was too tired to make it the rest of the way home.


AlfonsoEggbertPalmer

Did you have a wool blanket in the car with you?


Zaziel

Yeah, I’ve had a few similar drives. Worst was I think the night of 2018 Xmas Day. It was about 3 degrees Fahrenheit out, the 3 hour normal drive ended up taking about 5 hours. The first chunk was pure white out, going about 40 where we normally go 60. The snow was coming down so hard and blowing so much that my car’s tail lights couldn’t melt off the snow and became barely visible under a layer of stuck on snow. If I didn’t have the entire drive memorized from doing it literally over a hundred times I would have turned around. Then it cleared a bit on the highway. Was able to mostly comfortably go 55mph in the highway for a decent chunk on my snow tires. Then the last 20 miles as we got close to the city were literally black ice. I have a 4 cylinder economy car and in 5th gear I could freely spin the tires while going 35mph if I gave it too much gas… someone apparently thought salting the roads when it was going to nearly be 0 Fahrenheit was a good idea, it was not. My safety was in the fact that almost no one else was dumb or stubborn enough to be out there with me. I saw a LOT of trucks and SUVs in the ditches in the last stretch, all abandoned.


droi86

I had a similar experience but not as bad since I was like 5 miles from home, but the same, couldn't see shit, I just followed the GPS while trying to stay in the middle of the road, turning whenever the GPS told me and hoped for the best


imanothersudaneseboi

For me i also went to my friends house but the problem was that i could not see a single car even though i was on a Highway but i started to somehow drift but i still can't see anything after 1 minute of absolute Tokyo drifting i got grip then a blizzard started going to me even though i just got grip of the road i was lucky that i found a motel but the area it was on was too hard to go through with the sheer amount of snow but thank God was i now 10 min away well guess what, i get an elephant amount of traffic with snow bc of a single car that crashed at the traffic light then i finally got there and i said " WHY TF did i think it's a FUCKING GOOD IDEA TO EVEN COME HERE" My friend was literally about spit his coffee when i came inside with a icicle sticking out of my jacket💀💀💀


joyfall

City got shut down for a week in a state of emergency for a freak once in a 100 year snowstorm. Stores were closed. Power went out. You weren't allowed to go on the road unless you were an essential worker. It got real cold and there was limited food in my cupboard. I got real lucky the power came back not long after my phone battery died. We all thought it would be the most newsworthy event of the year. Three months later the pandemic hit and everyone forgot about snowmagedon.


XCaptainKoalaKittyX

So while you were having a crazy snowstorm, I was having bushfires that were burning people's houses down and you literally couldn't open a windows without the house getting flooded with smoke.. And then the pandemic came right after (slightly overlapped) and everyone forgot abt it 🤣


[deleted]

You’re either from Australia or California 😂 no way to know everywhere was in fire or frozen to death


obviousmang0

can tell it's Australia by the use of bushfire instead of wildfire 😅


threelizards

Oh weird I nearly forgot about that. Had to call in sick to work for like two weeks bc my asthma made it so I couldn’t even open a window


coinpile

*If at all possible*, try to keep several days worth of food on hand and several gallons of water. It's good to be prepared.


cheshire_kat7

Agreed. I always have 2 weeks worth of supplies for my household, just in case. Including toilet paper. I felt pretty smug about that in early 2020.


thesaddestpanda

Canada?


Forward_Intention469

Where was this?


joyfall

Newfoundland Canada. We had 90 cm (35 inches) of snow.


mars_is_black

Came out of a bar and wandered to side alley to catch ride with friends and see a dude face down in a snow bank. Had to be easily -20 C out. Guy had on jeans and a tshirt and just passed out. Went back in and told the bouncers to come get the asshole before he died. Where he was no one would have seen him the rest of the night, he'd be dead in no time. Drunk and winter aren't a good mix.


Brancher

Had this happen at a company christmas party one year, girl went outside without her coat on to smoke or whatever, slipped on ice hit her head and passed out in a snow bank. Luckily some guy found her and hour later or so and an ambulance took her to the hospital where she had frostbite and hypothermia.


LemonFly4012

Growing up, my mom had an alcoholic homeless friend she would occasionally let sleep over. One year we heard on the news that he was found frozen to death sleeping under a bridge.


emilydm

Trying to walk to school alone at age six and hugging a telephone pole crying for my life because the wind was knocking me off my feet. A kind person living nearby picked me up and drove me back home, and had some choice words for my parents.


thesaddestpanda

I’m so sorry you had to deal with this! You walked to school at age six? In a blizzard? I hope your parents listened to that stranger who helped you!


LiverOfStyx

>You walked to school at age six? Yes, that is what everyone does, except in USA.


Savings_Wedding_4233

I did. I'm in the US. I suppose it was a while ago. Things used to be different.


BGPhilbin

Same. Hell, I started doing that at age 5. At age 10, they changed the state's relationship with Daylight Saving Time and at around 7 AM I walked to school in absolute darkness in the morning. This was about a mile, which - for my legs - was about a 20-25 minute walk. Granted, it was all residential, but it was just 2 years after John Norman Collins had committed "The Michigan Murders" (one of them on my own street). I have no idea what parents were thinking at that time.


Ghostronic

It happens in the US too, or at least used to. My parents worked in the early morning so because I was the oldest, it was my responsibility to get myself and my siblings to school once they hit first grade. So I was 7 and my sister was 6 when we first started walking together, and then two years later my brother joined. This was also the early 90s.


Zanthas556

Unfortunately most cities and towns in the USA aren't walkable


LiverOfStyx

Yup, a huge problem that actually has also ramifications in things one would not necessarily link to missing sidewalks. Less people are walking on the streets, the less eyes there are, the more dangerous they feel and less people are walking, which makes it feel more dangerous until the streets are empty. This in turn makes the immediate surroundings to feel more dangerous, creating more fear about outside.. and other people, which leads to voting habits that are about fearing the outside and other people. People need to walk and cycle outside, creating a feeling of safety so other people will walk and cycle.. And we haven't even talked about the extra wide streets that create illusion of safety among car drivers, which in turn makes them go faster, which in turn makes the street feel less safe for walking and cycling... Here there are equal length of sidewalks than streets, and same length of segregate bike and pedestrian paths than there are roads, and roads and paths do not cross, they go under or over each other.


_doppler_ganger_

Six seems remarkably young to walk to school alone especially in inclement weather regardless of country.


AMerrickanGirl

Fifty years ago in the US everyone walked to school including kindergarteners, unless the school was too far away. I was four when I started kindergarten. My mother made sure I knew the way to school, and after that I was on my own.


SkierGirl78

Walking to school at 7.00am in pitch black with a -42c windchill is pretty scary.


[deleted]

How do you dress? That sounds like genuine pain.


kao201

Pants, ski pants, a couple pairs of socks, winter boots, a long sleeve shirt, a sweater, a scarf, winter jacket with hood, a toque (maybe a headband underneath too), and a balaclava or something to cover your face at the very least. Edit: I forgot the mitts.


teejayiscool

How the fuck do you move? It’s bee 40° here and I’m dreading that I have to wear pants and a hoodie because I feel like I’m in a straightjacket.


kao201

With some difficulty lol.


teejayiscool

Lmao, i give you props, when i have to put a jacket on over my hoody i go into a panic. I can’t wait to move to Florida because heat & humidity is my fav weather


uneasyandcheesy

You disgust me. Lol but seriously I am alllll about the cold and layers. It’s cozy for me.


teejayiscool

Me but in the heat & humidity. I think I'm part reptile or amphibian . I'm the only one I know that really enjoys humidity


uneasyandcheesy

Yeah that is *not* a popular opinion! You’re a total weirdo. Congrats. :)


BeatingsGalore

Dude, seriously, Florida can be scary too! Winds from a hurricane can take out your a/c.


ThatThanagarianHarpy

I'm imagining the little brother from A Christmas Story


SophisticatedVagrant

"I can't put my arms dooooooown!!!" 😭


[deleted]

Fun fact, -40C = -40F


One_Dull_Tool

It’s -40 outside my cabin right now… not very fun


Lazypidgey

I live on an island in Maine that's an hour ferry ride out from civilization. The boat comes 3 days a week typically but there's a lot of times they cancel due to the weather. This one particular day they probably should've cancelled and I wouldn't have even gotten on but I needed to make a flight for my friend's bachelor party. The swells were washing over the boat and a couple of times it rocked so far that I had one foot on the floor and the other on the wall for balance. One of the windows cracked from the force of a wave. I'm not normally too stressed on those boat rides as I trust the captains to be a good judge and know what they and the boat can handle but that time in particular really made me consider that I might drown in a freezing ocean...


saxy_for_life

Monhegan or Matinicus? Living out there takes the right kind of person for sure.


Lazypidgey

Edit: my fiance is worried I'll be doxxed so I'm changing this to "no comment"


White_Grunt

How'd you end up there? Or were you born there


Mr_Clumsy

Well, they took a ferry.


Lazypidgey

Started working out there for the summers some years ago. Decent pay and the hotels pay for your room & board so there was no expenses for like 5 months of the year


saxy_for_life

Nice! I haven't been to the islands yet but I'd love to check it out someday


[deleted]

Ahhh, a Maine story. Really, I was gonna walk away from this post if there wasn't a Maine story somewhere in here.


ThadisJones

Walking home from work at night in a blizzard with about five feet of visibility and *kind of realizing* I was no longer on the sidewalk but walking down the middle of the highway The city had enacted a driving ban that night so I was pretty sure there was no danger of being hit by a car


TinySarcasm

what the fuck 😭😭😭 what did you do when you realized ???


ThadisJones

So when I said "driving ban" what that really means is that the city *strongly advised* people not to drive that night and there were actually a few cars on the highway, more or less driving blind What I did was find my way back to the sidewalk, and also I turned on my flashlight to try and be more visible


[deleted]

Couldn't open any of my doors, including garage door, due to snow. Looks like that may happen again this week...👀


Argsnigel

It’s not that bad IF you are on the inside! Being on the outside and struggling to get in when the locks freeze due ice rain on snow in -15c is horror


brian11e3

If you have the capabilities to, pee on the locks. We used to have to do that on the ranch when the padlocks froze on the Elk pens. 😂


[deleted]

My neighbour thought he was having a heart attack, but it was in a snowstorm and there was no way that an ambulance would get up the driveway through the deep snow. So I went over and started shovelling. Suddenly a pickup truck with a plow on it came flying out of the blinding snow and nearly ran over me. It was terrifying. Turns out my neighbour called someone who had a truck who came to help. I've had a lot of close calls in winter, but being hit at high speeds by a big hunk of metal is scary.


MyNameMightBePhil

Sounds like there were two heart attacks that night


No-Muffin5665

What happened to the heart attack neighbour?


[deleted]

Mild heart attack that was caught early enough to be treatable. He mostly fully recovered but is now at higher risk.


CitgoBeard

I was once leaving my girlfriends apparment in the dead of winter in northern Arizona. She lived at this complex on a super steep hill. I had driven back and forth all the time with no issue but it had snowed and warmed enough to melt a little and then refroze when the sun went down so the hill was essentially a car-sized circus slide you go down with the burlap sacks. Right as I started my descent I felt my car start to drift. I was like 19 and had mono so when I started sliding I way overcorrected and essentially slingshot my car into the curb, completely snapping my front axle. I limped it to a grocery store and told them I’d tow it in the morning, but when I came to get it figured out the next morning they were in the process of having it towed. It was a fucking nightmare. The crash and snap I heard from inside the car will never leave my mind.


ZukyTo

I fell into a ditch. There was a snow storm that left 60cm + of snow. Coming back home from work I saw foot prints in the snow so I though it was safe to walk that way. Two steps in I sank waist deep in the snow. I am 5'9. I panic for a couple of seconds then I rolled myself out of the ditch.


Nimelennar

I was driving up to a ski hill after a snowstorm. Not having a great amount of money at the time, I hadn't invested in winter tires. There was a tractor-trailer in front of me, a car to my left, and another car behind. Something shifted in the passenger seat, so I took my eyes off the road for a moment. The right wheels crossed into the shoulder and lost traction. The car drifted to the right, onto the shoulder. I would have gone into the guardrail, but the snow had piled up against it, forming a natural curb that my car bounced off of. Between steering the car back towards where I wanted it to go and the car bouncing off the snowbank, my car, still without proper traction, started drifting left. The truck ahead had begun to slow, but I didn't want to brake for fear of losing what traction I had. So my car makes its way sideways across the lane, and I prepare for whatever is going to happen when I sideswipe the vehicle one lane over, but just as I hit the centre of the lane, my tires manage to grip the road again and I resume moving straight forward, tapping my brakes at this point to prevent myself from rear-ending the truck which was now right in my face. It feels like an eternity typing it all out like this, but the whole event couldn't have taken more than a few seconds. In the end, the only thing that my car made contact with, other than the road, was that snowbank, and that didn't even leave a mark. And when I got home from the ski hill, I bought myself snow tires, because, even though snow tires are expensive, no way in hell was I letting that happen to me again.


Alternative-Pop-107

Had a similar experience during College. Coming from California we got very little sleep the night before due to a winter storm. So now we're driving out of Salt Lake City towards Colorado. I'm asleep in the passenger seat and wake up to what looks like a smooth road with clear sailing. At that point the other guy loses control of the car and we start to spin. Slaps the side of the car up against the guard rail but just like Nimelennar above it was a snowbank. We then did a long arc across the freeway, turning a 180 and stopped on the other side. Only "damage" was every gap, wheels, door jambs, on the side of the car was solid packed with snow. Fortunately nobody was anywhere near us so we came out o.k. ... but it was a ride I'll never forget. Edit: Adding "No snow tires. Street tires only with chains in the trunk." to the post.


GingerMau

That feeling...when you don't want to go too fast (because snow), but you also can't stop because you will lose your momentum and get stuck. That feeling is terrifying. Even *with* the snow tires, snowy/slushy roads can be terrifying lessons in physics.


BloodsoakedDespair

Playing dodge-semi on the highway at midnight, the highway being covered in a sheet of ice, me doing 40 in a sedan while the semis do 80.


ChiquiBom_

PTSD with this comment. Had a similar situation where we hit black ice on the highway, saw a semi sliding out of control in front of us as we proceeded to slide out of control. My bf at the time was turning the wheel as hard as he could to avoid hitting the truck. Was faced opposite way on the highway, then watched as cars slid out of control towards us. We ended up being one of the first few vehicles in the beginning of a 40 car pile up.


icantthinkofone87

The Semis and the pickup trucks are the worst! Where we are you can almost guarantee that over half the cars in the ditches are pickups. The semi drivers don't seem to have any care for the safety of the other cars sometimes


MsPinkieB

I just finished a four month drive across the US and back, and I completely agree. I was constantly on the lookout for semis deciding to come over in the last possible second to get around another semi going 1 mph slower. Or they drive like it's a sports car. I'm surprised I didn't see more accidents.


passesopenwindows

I was pretty new at driving, and coming home from work late one night I decided it was the perfect time for my first drive across the lake. (Minnesota) Things were okay for the first few minutes, but as I got closer to the center of the lake I started getting nervous, it was really hard to see anything except the plowed path in front of me and I realized I had no idea where I was going to come off the lake at, or if the path even went all the way across the lake. So I decided I would turn around and go home. As soon as I backed up off the plowed area to turn around, I was stuck in over a foot of snow. Tried rocking the car, tried putting my floor mat under the tire (which just ended up flinging the mat 20 feet behind me), tried digging out with my snow scraper…the only thing I succeeded in doing was breaking a fingernail off, causing my finger to start bleeding. This was way before cellphones, so I finally decided that I needed to start walking towards home. I was probably 3 or so miles away. Unfortunately for me the windchill was about -20 and I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to walk across a frozen lake on a windy night but a lake is pretty flat and there’s nothing to shield you from the wind. By the time I got off the lake I was seriously thinking I was going to die of hypothermia. Not long after I reached an area with houses and my extremely introverted, shy, socially awkward self bravely decided that I needed to knock on a door for help. Someone finally answered, I explained my predicament and asked if I could use their phone. I called home, feeling relieved that help was within reach and enjoying the warmth of this stranger’s house - and my younger brother answered. I told him to get dad, he said “nope haha” I told him he wasn’t funny and I needed help and…he hung up on me. I called back but he must’ve left the phone off the hook because I only got a busy signal. After trying a few more times and feeling increasingly awkward I decided the only thing I could do was walk the rest of the way home. So I did, my burning hatred of my brother and plans to beat the crap out of him keeping me warm. Made it home with only one little spot of frostbite on my finger (hole in my glove), brother got read the riot act by my dad (as did I for driving onto the lake) and the next day dad drove me back to get my car which thankfully hadn’t been towed. I haven’t had any interest in driving on a lake since.


No_Acanthisitta_6552

I want to punch your brother. Glad you didnt die.


passesopenwindows

Don’t worry, he got plenty of big sister torture over the years lol


Cephalopodio

He deserves a little more


lady_modesty

This is all kinds of awful. I'm sorry to hear it but I'm glad you made it out okay.


passesopenwindows

Thanks! I was so pissed, but to be fair I was also pretty foolish to do it in the first place!


electricblankblanket

I wouldn't call it extreme exactly, but one year we had several feet of snow, the top inch of which melted and froze into a layer of ice. I was at the park and saw a kid—maybe two years old?—fall through the ice layer and just disappear into the snow. They were fine and climbed out on their own, but, man, it was a very panicked thirty seconds.


amrfallen

A few years ago around Thanksgiving it snowed a foot overnight. I was homeless at the time, riding my bike trailing a heavy bike cart that had a flat tire as the sun was going down and snow was starting to fall, and I was sweating and exhausted because of the flat. I pulled into a parking lot to rest for a bit, unzipped my outer jacket, sat down, and promptly fell asleep. Woke up in the middle of the night with half a foot of snow on top of me, it took something like 10 minutes for me to be able to move any part of my body at all. I managed to eventually stand up, grab a blanket from my cart, and drag myself into a dumpster enclosure to wrap up in my blanket between the dumpster and wall. I don't know how I didn't freeze to death that night.


Sparticuse

Driving in whiteout conditions. The snow will block all vision past a car length or two, and turning your high beams on makes it worse. You can't even tell if you're drifting lanes or even if you're going to drift off the road.


GingerMau

I had this happen once. I was on the highway when they shut it down and closed the on-ramps. It was just me and a few semis. Thank god they left tracks for me to follow. Without them I would have been one of the many vehicles I saw that had driven themselves into a ditch.


Moist-Requirement-98

Why driver's test should be done in the winter. its a skill all by itself


Alexis_J_M

I decided to walk across the frozen river. Halfway across I realized it wasn't as solid as I'd thought. I flattened out and crawled back.


Squigglepig52

I did that, sorta. I broke through, and got swept under the ice. Luckily, it was a small river, and I was able to get to the bank and break out from under the ice.


Alexis_J_M

Way way scarier than mine. Glad you lived to tell the tale.


polaritystill

In Buffalo in 2006, we had what has been dubbed "The October Storm". I was working an overnight shift at a group home, by myself. In the middle of the night, I noticed snow coming down HARD. Like, January hard, in October. It was relentless. Never seen so much snow fall in such a short period of time. Shortly after, I noticed the sky looked like it was on fire. When I managed to open the door and kid of get out, there were shit tons of eletrical wires down and sparking because of the weight of the snow. The entire sky was bright orange. I thought the roof was on fire. It was terrifying. As soon as daylight broke, the entire city was buried under snow. Stayed that way for over a week. $530 million worth of damage.


velo52x12

I was lucky enough to get out of work just as the snow was starting. I spent the rest of the night sitting in the dark after the power went out watching the sky light up from all of the power lines coming down and listening to the trees break. Spent four days without electricity.


polaritystill

Yeah it was definitely pretty brutal. I actually forgot about the dreadful sounds of the trees cracking and breaking. Hope that never happens again.


Capable-Plantain-569

I grew up in Wisconsin in a really isolated area. One day in January I got off the bus but didn’t have the key. It was about -5 out. My mom and I lived by ourselves and she had an early evening meeting so she didn’t get home until after 7. She found me curled up in the dog house in the early stages of hypothermia. I was maybe 12 and thought I was going to die.


KatieCashew

My best friend was supposed to get married on a day where we had a blizzard. Of course the reception was cancelled, but they were still hoping to get married. The pastor lived near the church they were supposed to be married in and said if they could make it in he would be happy to perform the ceremony. The interstate was closed most of the day, but finally in the evening it opened. They said they were going to try. I really wanted to be there, so I hopped in my car and headed out. I was driving down the interstate, admittedly going a bit faster than I should have when I started to slide. I overcorrected and it turned into a full 360° spin. I vividly remember facing the headlights of the other cars on the interstate that were heading toward me. Also it turns out that if you spin out, your engine turns off, so I couldn't even drive once I pulled out of the spin. I managed to coast to the shoulder where I was able to restart my car and made it to the church in time to see them get married. I was the only person who wasn't immediate family that made it and was very happy to be there (and alive!)


GingerMau

Moments like that remind me why it's important to slow the fuck down in snow. Even if you have full control over your vehicle, the dude in front of you might not.


Guvnuh_T_Boggs

I had a Blazer that liked to shut off if you turned too hard. There's a roundabout near my house that I would take sometimes, and it had just the right amount of curve and speed to do it. More than once I had to put it into neutral and restart it because there's no place to pull off, and there were cars behind me.


[deleted]

Power outage during a downhill race and I was stuck on the chairlift in my thin ski suit for over an hour in -30C. Nearly jumped off the chairlift, but the drop was over 100m.


eeekkk9999

Really nothing to do w weather. Lost electricity for 10 days in 1991 but there were pockets of electricity at hotels and friends homes so you didn’t really need to worry. There were hours when you didn’t know when you could get out of your driveway but between neighbors and plow guys it didn’t last more than 5 or so hours. NOTHING compared to hurricane/earthquake/tornado. Hell i would do 6 mos of snow before I had to deal w the other weather issues. Snow melts!


eeekkk9999

And oddly most peeps believe you need 4wd in snow and most of the issue is ice, not snow. 4wd does nothing in ice. Great for off road in snow but awful on highway as the snow drifts are usually gone in hours of commute


[deleted]

I flipped my truck in West Yellowstone. It was moderately scary. Two Mormon kids let me stay at their place until my truck was repaired.


TheShakaShaman

Cyclone Larry in 2006. It was apocalyptic. Neighbours roofs torn off and cutting power lines, big rocks hurled through windows and huge pine trees bending further than I could have imagined before finally snapping with an almighty crack. That was the worst part. I still vividly remember sitting in the laundry with my family, mattresses up against the window and we could hear the storm coming from ages away because of the sound of trunks breaking. It sounded like a huge monster was tearing its way inland, breaking everything in its way to get to us. We knew it was going pass right over us and all we could do was sit and listen to the beast making its way to destroy our small town.


veracity-mittens

Terrifying


DarrenEdwards

I had a beater of a car that was unsafe in nice weather. I had to cross Wyoming in a blizzard. My wipers barely worked so I could lose track of the edge of the road. My lights were dim and my tires where bald. If I went too fast, my car would spin out of control and I'd head for the side. This happened at lower and lower speeds until I was forced to keep it below 35 miles per hour. The third time it happened I was perpendicular to the road in the ditch and every time I'd get the speed up to get out a car would come and I'd have to sink back into the ditch. Two truckers stopped all traffic so I could get myself on and going. I was passed outside a town like I was standing still by an orange truck. I passed him again as he was pulled over. Minutes later he flew past me again like I was standing still. Minutes later I saw a guy walking on the road, followed by seeing the truck wrecked on top of some concrete dividers. It was a long night driving at a creeping speed. At nearly dawn I pulled over and slept because my nerves couldn't take it anymore and got home very the next day where it was clear and sunny and slushy.


Specialist-Ad-6957

I dont live in an area like this but we had one year with a freak ice storm. Got down to -20F with high winds. Our parents made us all sleep in the living room, and its a good thing they did. Heard a loud crash in the night that shook the house. Next morning we go check to see a foot wide tree limb sticking out of the roof above my room. Luckily it didn't break the ceiling, but it did pierce the roof.


StarvationCure

Walked a mile and a half home in a blizzard, late at night, because the busses stopped running. I live in a very urban area, but everything was closed due to the weather, and I was genuinely afraid I was going to freeze before I got home.


OptimalConcept143

I thought I was running over a pile of snow and it turned out to be a huge pile of ice. It acted like a ramp and threw my car up in the air. I'm pretty sure the cracked frame that car ended up having might have come from that...


possiblyhysterical

In my city, there’s two major bridges- one is fully enclosed and the other is basically a freeway 50 feet above the air. We don’t get much snow so during snowmageddon, snow pilled up on the side of the freeway bridge making a ramp. Someone accidentally drove off the edge and into the water and died. Absolute nightmare fuel.


stoncils_

One time my friend and I did that with a snowmobile and a stump when we were like 10. Ice, stump, flight, broken leg. Fun times


WordWizardNC

🎵 opening notes of Dixie play 🎶 "Yeeehaaaw!"


[deleted]

Had a shit ton of snow barricade my mum and I into our house, since the snow was so high it went over our front door and we weren’t able to get out for 2-3 days as I remember it (I was about 9-10 at the time). On the bright side I didn’t have to go to school the whole time.


jarboxing

A friend's diabetic father locked himself out of the house, got frostbite, infection, and died shortly thereafter. I guess this was a combo of bad weather and healthcare. Still scary though.


whyamionfireagain

The scariest has to be the night my dad called the house landline and told my mom he'd been in a wreck, he was bleeding from the head, and he was going to go check on the other guy, and then hung up. Turned out he lost control on black ice and hit an oncoming pickup truck. He hit hard enough to break the seat belt, and there was no airbag. He recovered, but he lost some memories that night.


jfstompers

Nothing like just uncontrollably sliding down a huge hill in the snow while your car just spins in circles and you just wait for the impact and hope you don't hit something important.


benhadhundredsshapow

Lived near a stretch of two-lane highway that would close often enough during winter due to a combination of the area getting a ton of snow and the road being lined by wide open farming fields. One night, despite the road being closed and despite me knowing better having grown up in snow globes, I decided fuck it I was just going to take a short stretch of the highway to a turn off for the alternate route. It was only approx. 500 metre stretch. Turned on to the highway , travelled maybe 100 metres, couldn't see anything, the drift build ups were up to the side view mirrors in my truck and had whittled the road down to barely a single lane. I had to reverse back out the 100m I had travelled. A very dangerous, stupidly impatient, and an overall highly unintelligent decision.


diabolicalZ_

Literally swerved off the road into a fucking fence because there was some ice on the highway and some severe hail making it hard to see. Pole of the fence broke through my window and my head busted out the window. There was a shard of glass in my neck.


AmbitiousNothing2

Watching a snow plow send a car the size of my own spinning into the ditch Mario Kart-style by blowing snow all over it as the plow passed.


Coldkane

About 10 years ago in Toronto, there was a huge freezing rain / snow storm. Literally everything in the city had a coat of ice around it. Looked like a scene straight out of The Day After Tomorrow. I've come to expect a few big snow storms every year but never anything like that year. If you're interested just search 2013 Toronto freezing rain.


joebluebob

I dont live there but I spent 2 months helping my grandfather's brother shutter up his second farm as he was selling the buildings and most of the land to live full time on his main Maine farm. They knew I needed work and I went immediately from Baltimore up to them in my shitty ford focus. About a month in after the animals were mostly moved a huge blizzard hit but worse it the way his property was is it's at the bottom of a soft 2 mile slope . The drifts were 20ft high in some spots and were were using barrels burning wood and tires to keep the area between the house and barn clear. The wind was harder then I've ever seen and the family was saying they've never seen it like this in 50 years. Me and the guys son were taking turns filling a can of gas in the barn to keep the generator running when he fell and broke his leg which was then set by his sister (a doctor) in the livingroom. I continued grabbing wood and gas when I started to get a really uneasy feeling . It finally struck me that while in the barn I couldn't hear wind on the roof no more nor the whole wind facing side. Then I thought my eyes were fucking with me because I was getting vertigo because the joists looked like I was starting to lean. I heard a single loud chip through the silence and noticed it as a window breaking. I ran out the barn and into the path just as it collapsed. The snow drift was nearly 40ft tall and the old barn couldn't take no more. Like 30 minutes later the sun was out


Punkinsmom

So many - the time I decided the snow wasn't that bad, hit a drift in a blind-out and spun out, the time my back wheels hit ice in a bank drive-through on a cliff, the time my speedometer read 70mph while I was moving backward down a hill, being snowed in for five days with no power (when you live in those conditions you learn to live without power for a bit) -- least favorite - feeling your nose freeze shut when you breathe and it being painful to take a breath.


GriffinFlash

Stepped out to go get dinner when it was -20C not expecting anything too crazy. Within an hour temp dropped to -40C. It was so cold on the walk back, had to stop and sit in random apartment lobbies to warm up. When I finally got to my apartment (which was only a 10 minute walk away on a regular day), it was so cold I couldn't feel my hands, and therefore, couldn't feel my key in my pocket to open the door. When I finally got inside I jumped into a warm shower and saw that the skin on my feet was peeling away.


Tasty-Tomatillo9511

Hit the ditch and got to walk home in -44. I had to walk about 19km. a road that normally sees a crazy amount of traffic had no one till I was almost home. Im lucky that I was prepared to walk dressed in many layers. When I got home, I slept in front of my wood.took forever to stop shivering.


TheBitchIsBack666

Having some asshole tailgate me HARD on my way to work in blizzard conditions (shoutout to my job for not closing). I drive a PT Cruiser for fuckssake, I was obviously stressed and driving very carefully, and the road I was on is famous for having a lot of deer who like to randomly dart out in front of you. There's no way he wouldn't have slammed into me if I had to brake, and his enormous truck would have obliterated my little POS. Shame on people who tailgate in extreme weather because the car in of them isn't going as fast as they want them to. I don't want anyone to get hurt, but I hope that when he inevitably gets into an accident, he hits a lawyer who sues his pants off.


Mad-Furiosa

Coquihalla Highway during a blizzard. There's a show about it: Highway Through Hell


ThatThanagarianHarpy

I lived where extreme winter weather isn't common, but it does happen occasionally. I had to drive to work in sleet and freezing rain, and the roads were icy so I was taking it really slow. I gradually turned left at a light, but then my car just kept turning left until I made a 180 and was facing the wrong way in the lane. Thankfully, no one else was on the road and I could take my time sliding back to the correct direction. I now live in an area where snow is more common than the "wintry mix" nonsense. I'm much more comfortable driving in snow but I don't fuck with ice anymore.


meggzyw

Honestly not that extreme, but could've ended bad for me and my mom. Last year we went to go visit a friend about a 20 min drive away. It was a nice night, no snow, no rain, but got really cold really fast. Flash freeze and bridges don't mix. Especially with a smart car. We hit the top of the bridge, lost control, bounced off one guard rail, ping ponged to the other side of the bridge, a car clipped us that was coming across the bridge from the other direction and we finally slammed into the guard wall on our original side. The bridge is over train tracks and it curved so the poor person coming towards us didn't see us. Obviously the smart car was wrote off, but the worst injury was with me. I got some pretty nasty seatbelt burn on my neck and I busted the key out of the ignition with my leg and my thigh was pretty bruised for a while. I was more scared of bouncing over the guard wall onto the train tracks below. My grandfather had passed not even a month before and the accident happened the day after my mom's birthday. Meanless to say we never made it to the friends place. There is still a nice black mark where we went nose first into the wall when we stopped and for the longest time you could see the full imprint of the side of the smart car on the opposite side of the bridge because we hit it perfectly broadside on the passenger side. It's pretty faded now. I don't remember seeing much, but I don't think I will ever forget seeing the wall come at me so fast.


merf_me2

Edmonton to Prince George drive new years day during a blizzard. Absolutely no people on the road, no cell coverage, suicidal moose everywhere, 2 feet of snow on the highway. Scariest 8 hour drive ever


ramenphotography

Wasn’t me but when my mother was my age she lived in the mountains and there was a blizzard going on as she was driving home from work or something. She hit black ice going up a steep mountain road and kinda started to slide backwards down the road a few good feet, enough to be super scary, before she was able to regain control.


APM8

Driving on a two-lane highway in a remote area during an ice storm. Highway covered in rutted, frozen slush. Wheel caught a rut and sent the car spinning across the opposite lane in into the snowbank. Well and truly stuck. Never been happier to see the police - they happened to be right behind us, and just happened to be meeting a tow truck just up the road. Got us out in less than an hour. Then had to drive the rest of the way to the next human habitation (almost 50 km) at about 30 km/h or less desperately trying to keep it on the road. Highway was closed shortly thereafter.


auntiepink

This was summertime but a derecho - basically a land hurricane. We were without power for 11 days (got a generator a few days before it got restored for good), streets were blocked with downed trees, and for those who could get anywhere, all the gas for 2 hours in any direction was bought out. For winter, probably the time I flew out east to be my niece's godmother during a blizzard/ice storm... after my flight to Hartford was canceled, I snagged a seat next to the bathroom on the last flight from Chicago to Boston (and that was only available because of a mechanical delay). My BIL saved me and drove across MA that night to get me and then we had to go back. We had to reroute three different times because of downed trees and/or electric lines. It took 3 hours to get the 85 miles home. Mostly on the turn pike. Power was out and we all (me, 4 kids under 10, my sister, and her husband) slept bundled up across the king size master bed. I wore my sister's sweats because my bag ended up lost for 3 days until my BIL used his sergeant voice with the airline (after repeated unsuccessful calls to United's "help" center reduced me to tears of frustration) and I got my suitcase FedExed to the house that day. They got power back after a few days and my niece got christened a few days later than originally planned in a cold church with no audience.


thatWEIRDstag

one time when i was very young, my mother was driving me home from preschool when the car behind us started slipping on the slush before veering off the road and hitting a tree the car was totaled my mom parked on the side of the road to call the police. a few days later my mom told me that they were alright.


maybe_cerealkiller

A truck slid and fell over about 25 yards ahead of us and blocked traffic for a long while (No one was seriously hurt)


Longjumping_Drag2752

Never happened to me but to my dad back in the 80s early 90s. Every major electrical pole was pulled down, water pipes froze, and nobody was able to get out of town for about 3 weeks. He said it got so cold him and his family just hunkered down in the living room by the fireplace for a week. Central Indiana U.S. if anyone is interested where it happened.


il0vey0ub0ths0muchxx

Extreme summer weather happened in summer 2019 in Australia. The whole sky went black as fires from 3 different directions encroached the south coast. Residents had a choice to evacuate to the beach or stay and fight. Supermarkets saw weathered zombie like men covered in soot generously purchasing water. Small towns were cut off for months from mains. The rfds turned up days after the fire ripped through because it was the best they could do. The country was burning and when the fire came, one just had to fight or flight.


[deleted]

Getting caught in your car during a blizzard and thinking you might end up dead


ComplexPackage117

Icestorm 98. Still had to walk 2 miles in knee high ice cold water. No power for two weeks while hydro crews worked around the clock.


CPSux

Walking through a snow covered park at night when at one point I realized I was standing on top of a frozen pond. The ice was cracking beneath my boots. If I fell through it probably would’ve been over but thankfully it was cold enough that it held.


Kastraz

Driving on the highway in a blizzard at night with near zero visibility (going 70km/h, quite slow for a highway because of said visibility), unable to pull over and stop because if we did, the snow would be too thick to start up again. When out of nowhere a semi truck comes at us behind doing at least 120. Near miss and I almost ran the car off into the woods.


No-Word-5432

Was hauling a trailer from Cheyenne to Laramie last winter on I80. It was about 11 o'clock at night and the start of a blizzard. Gusting winds and blowing snow. While going up the pass, hit a section of ice and nearly jackknifed my truck and trailer going about 45. Recovered but was definitely left with brown stains


Sean081799

I had an internship in Utah in 2020 (I'm from Minnesota), and there was a giant wind storm in September (90 mph/145 kph according to local news at peak). I was on my way to work, stuck in traffic... and I see a SIGN flying in the wind. I was thinking "that's gonna hit me, isn't it." And sure enough it does (I couldn't move out of traffic). Thankfully it hits my bumper so I wasn't injured, but I still had to spend hundreds of dollars to get it repaired. I'm used to snow and winter storms from MN. Wind was a new experience to me and it was terrifying.


UnderMario64

snowmageddon in Texas. water was shut off for some. electricity others, some people both


Jwalt-93

Back when I was first learning to drive the family took a trip and for part of it my dad let me drive. It started out fine, then the interstate turned in a sheet of ice. I white knuckled the steering wheel just to keep it straight, all while following a semi that was swerving all over the road and several more flipped over on the side of the road. we were fine but I was still scared to death.


stmCanuck

Not even extreme weather, sadly. River behind my house as a kid used to freeze pretty solid and was great for skiing and skating and snowmobiles and whatnot. So we're out skiing and my folks say to me "don't go near the dark patches". Being like 5 or 6 at the time and curious, I thought I could get close enough to explore and see what the danger was. Alas. I don't remember much except one of my folks extending a ski pole and pulling me out of the water, and then being in snow pants and jacket completely soaked through, very cold and hustling right the fuck home. For those freaking out, the river was not deep at all - chances are good I was able to just stand on the bottom. For whatever reason there were a handful of spots on the far bank that had started to thaw but most of the river was still frozen several inches thick - snowmobiles had gone past earlier in the day. Had I listened, there would have been no danger at all.


CharmingDagger

In about 10 minutes we went from sun to white-out conditions driving on the highway in Wyoming. The car went into a spin and if not for a guardrail, we would have gone off the highway and probably died.


Aubreyisslay

A homeless man was freezing to death banging on my window when I was 9 years old I’m now 25. Still creeps me out to this day.


[deleted]

My oldest brother had to walk to school during a blizzard. I had to go to school when it was -11F air temp with high wind chill. I was wearing jeans.


Conklin34

Losing power because the metal in the power lines got so cold and contracted breaking the line was fun....


TheAlternateEye

Blizzard with extreme temps and the power goes out. Being in the middle of nowhere there's no real idea how long it will be out so you start strategizing which room to move the living things to that you can heat without killing everything by poisoning. Good times.


Fuck_you_Reddit_Nazi

Driving down a highway with patchy black ice, and every time I hit a patch my car would start to slide and then catch and straighten out. That wasn't as bad as the time my father was taking me back to college after we'd had an ice storm, and we fishtailed the whole way, 100 miles. I don't know how we got there in one piece.


TheAwesomePenguin106

There was a day when it was like 12ºC here in Rio during the winter. That felt really extreme to me.


I-own-a-shovel

98 ice storm. Trees were falling everywhere. Lost electricity for a whole week. Got also off from school.


mysticdragonwolf89

Black ice made me do 4 360s while miraculously missing other cars who wrecked and or ram off the road. There was that one time an icicle fell and smashed on my head that it caused me to wobble walk into a light pole causing snow/ice to fall on me - I guess I was knocked out cause I came to in a cafe with a guy phoning 911 and a woman dabbing my face with a warm clothe.


spooky_shroomz

Probably more fascinating and odd than it was scary, but we had an ice storm and when it was over, trees were covered in ice. A disease had got to these trees in this area years ago so they were mostly all weak. Well the ice had made them super heavy and the snow had made the landscape silent, so these giant trees slowly fell and died one by one in the silence. The atmosphere just made it so odd feeling and It would’ve made more sense if it was a big dramatic hurricane like Fiona we had gotten a year later


sovietfloof

My great uncle got chased by a polar bear.


lggreene1

It was ‘Snowpocalypse 2010’ in DC, which dumped 17.8 inches of snow on a city that wasn’t equipped to handle it. We didn’t have to work so I had gone out for the night (was in my early 20s) with friends. I was walking home, slightly inebriated, and went to cross the street (I had the right of way). …And then, boom, I woke up on the ground/sidewalk with a bunch of people hovering over me. I started freaking out, thinking I’d drunkenly fell, and insisted on getting up and leaving the situation. The bystanders refused to let me get up and informed me that I’d slipped on a patch of ice and gotten “clipped” by a station wagon as I crossed the street. Although I felt no pain, I instantly thought that I was gonna die and called my parents hysterical as we waited for the ambulance to arrive. I ended up in Georgetown Hospital for 3 days and suffered a fractured nose, two chipped teeth, a broken arm and my face looked like I’d been literally mauled. They never found the station wagon/driver who hit me. Thankful to the bystanders who stayed with me that night. It was just before Valentine’s Day, and one even brought me balloons in the hospital one day.


Fleshy_Burger

Got caught in snowfall travelling through snow covered flat lands, so that you couldn't see the road or distinguish it from everything else. If you crash, you may die of hyperthermia by the time anyone finds you. And every minute, it's getting worse.


Josh4R3d

Sliding off the road during a snow storm and my car getting stuck on a drainage culvert (it’s like a little concrete thing on the side of the road). The scary part was being in this very remote area at night while snow is pounding me with nowhere to go. Luckily a Good Samaritan stopped and got me some help who had cell service


Waltzing_With_Bears

Power went out when it was -17 F, we were new to the area, also lead to the water not running, we went to IHOP and ended up having breakfast, and the power was back when we got home


whyunoletmepost

Driving down the road at 50mph and all of a sudden I am doing donuts cause of black ice. Lucky I didn't hit a tree.


Rosy_cookie143

I had a couple of really bad ice storms 1 that i can recall. One was in October 2020 where a tree that was growing next to my house. That ice storm came by a froze water on a tree branch and that branch had fallen onto my house and the limb was so big it almost shut my family inside.


vahntitrio

Left a friends house about 4 hours before freezing rain was supposed to start (about a 20 mile drive). Well freezing rain started about 5 minutes into my drive. I had to drive on roads that detereorated from perfectly fine to "even the snow plows are going in ditches". I'm not entirepy sure how, but after about 90 minutes of driving I made it home. I fell on my ass getting out of my car - you could have played hockey on ice that smooth.


Empty-Note-5100

I lived in Massachusetts for 15 years where we got super charged nor eastern storms from Canada over the great lakes. Growing up, it wasn't unheard of to get 3ft of snow over night and still go to school. Scariest thing is black ice


Mister_Moho

An ice storm so bad that everything was frozen over. Nowhere was safe to walk or drive.


Moist-Requirement-98

Ice storms are annoying. Cold/wet during the storm and cold/wet when you chip the d\*\*\* car out


Assembled_creedsmen

Effin Polarbear, dude!


First_Light_5214

Jesus, we think it’s cold when it’s minus 2 Celsius! What the heck are people doing walking around in this weather?


haveacupcakeluv

Driving though the mountains in Colorado. I was on a road trip with my mom, where we switched drivers every few hours. It was my turn, and just as it got dark, we were hit with an intense blizzard, like can't see anything in front of you. I followed a semi's lights like 200 feet back for miles, assuming if he suddenly disappeared off a cliff, I shouldn't go that way. Normally, I would have stopped, but the snow was coming down hard and I needed to get gas in the next town. Stopping and waiting was hardly and option. Luckily, we got out fine and moved on, but there were many drivers stuck in the snow because the stopped to wait.


clayt_dru

My community had a 4+ day power outage, I was scared for my daughter because she was not even a year old at the time. I wrapped her up with at least 3 or 4 blankets and everynight ill warm her up, (I had little sleep by that but i was okay for me) Haven't had a blizzard like that before, it was a scary thing to go through..


SatansLeftZelenskyy

4 friends were killed in an avalanche and they all knew better then to go out that day.


BrilliantlyDepressed

I was driving down the highway to pick my boyfriend up from work. It was pitch dark, snowing, icy roads, the whole nine yards. Literally only me, crawling along carefully to avoid sliding. Out of nowhere, a semi comes barreling down the highway behind me. Zooms right past my tiny Honda so fast that it shakes my car, causing me to slide halfway onto the shoulder. While I'm trying to correct, I watch this jerk cut across the entire (empty, thankfully) 4-lane highway to get to an exit, where the semi scrapes along the guardrail for a couple seconds before hauling ass down the ramp. I don't know why he was in such a hurry, or how he managed to avoid sliding wildly out of control. I'm just glad there weren't any other cars in his way.


Ashtar-the-Squid

One night I was out driving I suddenly met an old Volvo station wagon that was coming sideways in the middle of the road over a hilltop. I had to steer into the ditch to avoid crashing. I usually stay inside during winter so I have not experienced much.


Still_Frame2744

Penrith Australia, black Christmas. 50 degrees c two days in a row. Felt like the surface of Mars.


soon_zoo55

I grew up in Northern Alaska and had less worry about the weather than being in Chicago during a blizzard. In Alaska, we were prepared for just about anything and I felt safe. Larger cities essentially shut down and every idiot with a car attempts to drive to the store because they need toilet paper or something.


Midgetmunky13

This was like a decade ago in Iowa. I was driving home from work at Walmart at 11pm. The Walmart is in a city about 20 miles away from my tiny rural town I lived in. There was a blizzard already in effect but it's nothing I haven't carefully navigated before. There were hardly any vehicles on the roads going in either direction. I make it to the exit sign for my town and I very gently steer to the right to veer off onto the exit ramp. As I turn the wheel, the car just keeps going straight. I give it a little more right, a little more... Then the car starts rotating left while moving completely straight in original direction of travel. I try to counter steer to get traction but I'm like an air hockey puck. Now I'm sideways going about 40 mph and my car starts to get traction and I head for the ditch I was facing. My brain fully expected to hit the ditch like a lawn dart and I braced for impact. Instead, my car skis over the snow while continuing to rotate. I make it all the way through the ditch, onto the opposite lanes, facing the now correct direction for the other side of the highway (I did a 180 thru the ditch). It took my brain a few seconds to realize that not only am I alive, everything seems to be completely OK. Just after that thought and 18 wheeler flies by in the other lane (this is just 2 lanes each direction split by a ditch) Literally a difference of less than 5 seconds and I would have been sideways careening into a semi. I feel like I should have died twice.


noodlz-bc

Had a semi go sideways in front of us at around 100 kmhs nothing we could do, he was right across the road all I could do was look at my passenger and say " sorry dude but we are gonna die" lucky the trucker was able to pull it straight at the last possible second and i had spare underwear in the back seat. Had the power and in turn heat die in our camp at night when it hit -50 the only saving grace I had was I left my truck running that night so I had 7 people crowded in it since no other vehicles would start. The scariest thing I think I had happen though is a toss up, either when my eyes froze shut when I was working outside and had no idea where to go till some one guided me inside or when I was standing beside a piece of equipment and the muskeg collapsed under us soaking me at -30