Thursday, March 13, 2008

Blizzard in Alabama

Fifteen years ago I was preparing to cater a wedding for 300 people. It was the middle of March and we live in the deep south.

The afternoon before the wedding the weather man reported a "history making storm" on it's way. Now mind you, my husband and I were born and raised in the NORTH! We know what REAL snow is, but we also know how Southerners panic at the mention of snow. :o) You Northerner's would crack up if you saw the local news cast when there are just a few flakes in the air! People empty the store shelves of bread and milk...it's hilarious!

I called the Bride's family the day before the wedding and confirmed that the wedding would still be a go. They told me "Yes!" We drove into Birmingham to pick the rentals on all the dishes, fountains, table cloths, etc... When I got home I started my marathon of baking cake for 300 people and preparing the rest of the food.

At 10:00 pm I had the cake all baked and iced, but not decorated, then it happened! The lights went out. Another thing about living in the south, we have ALOT of beautiful, tall pine trees. When the wind blows hard it is very likely the power will go out due to falling trees. Our power did not come on for FIVE DAYS!

We woke up that Saturday morning with 18...yes, that's right, EIGHTEEN inches of snow! Our weatherman was right...it was a "history making storm!" Now my fellow Northerners (notice I do not call myself a Yankee) may laugh and say "big deal". Well here in the south IT IS A BIG DEAL.

It was four days before we could even get out to go take a shower at a friend's house. At that time we had well water, no electricity means no pump to pump that water from the ground! I had never been so thankful for running water!

Although we had no power and no water we did have CAKE! Thus, all of our neighbors had cake too! lol Our pets also had CAKE! Our neighbor across the road had city water, so we were able to bater cake for water. lol It's all pretty funny now!

The wedding went off smoothly the next weekend! The only food I had to replace was the cake and fruit, everything else kept OK.

Last night I heard the weatherman talking about "The Storm of 1993!" He said everybody has a story of that weekend. I had to laugh and thought, 'Boy do I have a story!'

2 comments:

Proverbs3122 said...

Wow, Kathy! I cannot imagine 18" here in AL!!

I read on someone else's blog the other day how funny they think it is that people run out and buy bread, eggs, and milk -- two of which will spoil if the power goes out!

Dana said...

That's a great story!

My sister's family was in Texas last week and they got a light dusting and EVERYTHING closed up! They tried to go out for dinner and nothing was open. Hilarious!

I can handle snow...it's the ICE that freaks me out! And we do get ice here in Indiana

Blessings--
Dana