Each time we have a significant weather event, it seems to turn into a contest for storytelling. Each person tries to top the current weather with a story of another one they lived through that was far worse.

But, during the winter storm that everyone in the state of Texas, and many or most in Arkansas, Louisiana, and other southern states stumbled through, I heard very few people trying to top what we were experiencing.

Phrases such as, “I don’t ever remember it this cold,” “This is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” and an abundance of old school, cold-weather metaphors (which shouldn’t be relayed here) were heard often for the week that saw the thermometer drop below zero where I live.

I’m talking about temperatures usually only reserved for announcers on a National Geographic special when they describe places called “tundras” and “desolate frozen plains.”

The memory of this winter storm likely will be forever frozen in time.

When I was in high school, a new rock group called Foreigner had a hit record on the radio called, “Cold As Ice.”

It referred to a relationship, not the weather. But for those of us who endured the bitterly frigid and seemingly endless weather conditions, “cold as ice” meant exactly what it says.

It was so frozen up, UPS and FedEx didn’t deliver. The mail didn’t run.

I guess the phrase, “Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow,” wasn’t applicable this go ‘round.

This was a serious storm. People struggled. They froze. Some died.

The approximately week of winter weather is being referred to as a, “Once-every-one-hundred-years winter storm.”

I looked back at the recorded temps, snow, ice, etc. That’s an accurate description. It isn’t likely any of us will live to see this again.

But what I do hope we all live to see again is how people’s behavior changed – for the better.

Not so long ago, politics turned people who had been friends for years, sometimes their entire lives, into alienated individuals. An unforgiving barrier went up between people. Friendships ended. Often, it was one-sided.

It happened to me.

Regardless, it isn’t the kind of behavior our parents and grandparents would have condoned or tolerated. They certainly would have been ashamed. The type of behavior I was raised to exhibit surfaced during the recent winter storm.

The ice storm seemed to change people. Instead of finding a reason to judge others, we saw individuals going out of their way to do whatever they could to help people. Some they knew, others they didn’t.

Several years ago, I bought a 4WD pickup. During the recent ice storm, I remembered why. We live at the end of a dead end road in the middle of nowhere.

That’s great when the weather’s nice and you want quiet, save the birds and other sounds of nature. But during ice storms, everything goes quiet. All of God’s creatures are seeking shelter – and something to eat.

As the power grid across Texas began to fail, most of us realized two things: How reliant we were on other people for the things that supply our basic needs; and how little we’d done to cover those bases should the people we count on find themselves in the same boat we were.

I’m not placing blame on anyone, that’s the job of the politicians. But I do think that what happened, overall, had some good in it.

I went out to my truck, which was completely covered in ice and snow, and managed to get the driver’s door open. I fired up the engine and turned the defroster on high. About 40-minutes later, enough of the windshield had thawed that I could use a scraper to clean off the field of vision.

My original reason for trying to drive on the roads was to check on some animals around the corner, and pick up a friend to see if we could find a place that was refilling propane bottles.

On the way, the thought occurred to me that there were lots of neighbors who were elderly and/or didn’t have vehicles that could make the trek into town, so, I called my wife and had her ask folks on our street if they needed anything.

When we arrived in town with our list, we found others who were doing what we were doing. Trying to find some basic items and get back home.

What truly impressed me was discovering that those with 4WD vehicles had volunteered to start out early in the morning picking up emergency personnel, such as physicians, nurses, and first responders, and were taking them to and from work, and picking up (or in some cases, making) food to deliver to them.

The second day of the storm, I made similar runs. As I dropped my friend off at home, I was about to pull out of their driveway and take a left to go home, when I saw a young man who appeared to be in his 20s. He had on a light jacket and was carrying a plastic bag. And he was walking.

Actually, slipping and sliding was more like it.

I made a right. Pulling up next to him, I rolled down the window and asked if he needed a ride. He gratefully accepted.

I asked where he was headed. When he told me his destination, which was about 15 miles away, I was stunned.

“You were going to walk 15 miles on the ice?” I asked.

“Yes, sir,” he said.

He explained that he had taken an expectant mother home and the car got stuck. He had to get back to town, and so he was walking.

As I looked at him, I could see the faces of my own children.

I drove him home.

I went home.

I scrolled social media and read dozens more stories of how people were helping each other. It seemed that as one person did something for someone else, someone came behind them to give a hand to assist them.

Philippians 2:4 says:

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

That verse sums up what we’ve seen during a time when we could have easily retreated into our own woes and needs.

Instead, many, whether intentional or not, worried more about the needs and concerns of their fellow man than they did themselves.

Maybe the ice storm was a harsh and intentional reminder for all of us of what really matters. Each other.

 

©2021 John Moore

To send John a message; buy his books, Write of Passage: A Southerner’s View of Then and Now Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, or listen to his Weekly 5-Minute Podcast; visit his website at TheCountryWriter.com.