State of Emergency in Big Bear!

I was unable to blog in the past two days because we had no power, no phone or cell service. The snow is so high that it was over my head. With the power off I used my wood stove; however, my wood was running low, too! I have lived here a long time and through lots of bad winters but I was actually getting a little scared and worried about roof collapses and trees falling. As it turned out many trees have fallen through houses. In fact, a tree fell through the home of one of my agents. They are living in temporary housing for the present. A roof has fallen in on a house in Eagle Point and I am sure there is much more damage we haven't heard about as yet.

The manager of my company has been without power since Thursday of last week. I lost everything in my deep freeze and in my refrigerator/freezer due to the loss of power. We've burned about every candle in the stores and in the drawers! And now more snow is expected tomorrow. Most stations are out of gas and the markets are very low on food. And everywhere you look is huge mountains of snow! My handyman came this morning and is shoveling my roof and a path to the wood pile. I want to have wood in the house in case the power goes off again.

My plow guy couldn't get out of his home on Friday so more snow piled up. I really got cabin fever and felt so isolated. So, Saturday morning when I got up it was blue skies and the sun was out. I decided to take matters into my own hands and shovel to my 4-wheel drive truck and see if I could get out. I started shoveling from my front door to the street. The snow was higher than me. It took over two hours to shovel a 2' wide path to my truck and then to the street which was only about 25' from my front door. Then there was the chore of removing the 4' of snow on the top and hood of the truck. When I was able to work on the snow on the truck my plow guy arrived and I drove the truck out into the street where we cleaned it off.

The next two hours we worked on digging out my Little box car. My Scion XB which is my work car and run around town car. The added weight of 4' plus of snow on the car gave it great traction and it drove right out of the driveway. We cleaned it off and then the snowblower cleaned the area where it was parked. I worked another two hours with the plow guy to get that driveway cleared. The snow blower can't handle this much snow so we had to break up the snow with shovels and then the snowblower could take a pass. I was really tired after that. I came in the house and remembered that the power was still out. It was cold inside without heat.

Sunday morning the power came back on. Boy, was I happy. I won't complain about the electric again! I did drive to the market and picked up a few things but the market was not well stocked. When I arrived back home I made home made enchiladas and soup. I wanted to be prepared in case we lost power again.

The road conditions are terrible. I don't know where the plows are but the roads are very bad. Even the main highway is in poor condition. Yesterday, they allowed skiers up and there were stuck cars everywhere. Lots of accidents and people blocking the roads. The roads should have been closed so we could clean up and try to get re-supplied before the thousands of people come up to play.

Last night on the late news they said that the roads would be closed to other than local residents to allow a convoy of food , gas and general supply trucks to enter Big Bear Valley. We haven't had mail service since last Wednesday. That was a wise decision to close Big Bear until we can handle just getting around before the flood gates open.

This has been a trying time and I am glad that the snow stopped when it did. Our lake will certainly be full this spring. Until next time, Bonnie