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1996 all over again? Snow shovels ready?

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January 6, 1996 was the day I moved to NJ.  The last trip anyway, I had made prior trips with stuff.

 

I left Ohio at 4am, spent 8 hours in a blinding snow storm(The 96 Blizzard) to get to Montclair and they closed all the roads not long after I pulled in.

 

There were 2 days of digging out, but I was with my GF(now wife) and we just stayed in and watched it all.

 

I also recall that not long after we were dug out, there was another storm 4 or 5 days later that dropped a foot or so.

 

Is history truly repeating?   While it looks kind of out to sea, there is another storm on deck for Thursday into Friday.

 

It bears watching.

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The night of that fateful 1996 storm we had contracted with a local garden/landscaping/plowing firm to plow our driveway (about 10 x 100 feet) and the lane we share with our neighbors (20' x 180 or so). Being barely 40 years old I didn't need them for pussy-shit snowstorms but I called them two days earlier. The boss came over around 1am with the plow but was clearly in difficulty. Man, that was a shitload of snow. It was feet deep and coming down like a mofo.

 

The plow guy was clearly struggling, going back and forth and back and forth and I'm watching him from the bathroom window. He stopped for about 2 minutes, then backed up and left. That led to me spending the entire next day digging us out barely enough to leave the property, literally 1/5th of what needed to be done. I cursed Mr. B****s as I dug until I read, in the local paper, that he had delivered a healthy baby that night, his own. Yeah he owned one of the first cell phones in Newtonian History. 

 

This storm is bupkes compared with that one. For the next three weeks Route 206 was a semi-road covered with 4 inches of ice. Speed limit for those not brain-impaired, 10 mph. Back roads fuggedaboudit. 

 

That storm was, as they say in Hoboken, a BEECH. We should thank our lucky stars for global warming.

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"Pork Roll" is indeed for Communists.

 

Half a day? How long is your drive? Buy a snow blower. Look at the map and see where you live. You will get more than 16" soon enough.

Today took me a half day but I really didn't work that hard. I have a big Toro snowblower. My drive is 70 miles each way and my company wouldn't tell me to stay home even if we got hit with an EMP so I'll burn a sick day if I need to.

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Today took me a half day but I really didn't work that hard. I have a big Toro snowblower. My drive is 70 miles each way and my company wouldn't tell me to stay home even if we got hit with an EMP so I'll burn a sick day if I need to.

Sorry, I meant your driveway. Now it should make more sense :)

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Took me 3 hours to clear 3/5 of my driveway. My 5hp 24" blower is not big enough....

 

I got plowed in and still have 6' banks at the mouth of my driveway.

 

Sent from my ONE A2005 using Tapatalk

 

Ever since I bought my plow, the best the plow guy can do is about 4 footers and this storm was only about 2 footers...I really want some solid 6 footers just to see what happens.

 

I also have been eyeballing one of those Platinum Ariens.  I need a 24" bucket just to fit down my paths and my current 24" Ariens is the smallest engine.  It really does pretty good(throws up to 50 feet) but these big snows can bog it if I don't stop.  The big engine will chew through it and laugh.    Of course who wants to spend $1500 for something you use a handful of times per year.

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The night of that fateful 1996 storm we had contracted with a local garden/landscaping/plowing firm to plow our driveway (about 10 x 100 feet) and the lane we share with our neighbors (20' x 180 or so). Being barely 40 years old I didn't need them for pussy-shit snowstorms but I called them two days earlier. The boss came over around 1am with the plow but was clearly in difficulty. Man, that was a shitload of snow. It was feet deep and coming down like a mofo.

 

The plow guy was clearly struggling, going back and forth and back and forth and I'm watching him from the bathroom window. He stopped for about 2 minutes, then backed up and left. That led to me spending the entire next day digging us out barely enough to leave the property, literally 1/5th of what needed to be done. I cursed Mr. B****s as I dug until I read, in the local paper, that he had delivered a healthy baby that night, his own. Yeah he owned one of the first cell phones in Newtonian History. 

 

This storm is bupkes compared with that one. For the next three weeks Route 206 was a semi-road covered with 4 inches of ice. Speed limit for those not brain-impaired, 10 mph. Back roads fuggedaboudit. 

 

That storm was, as they say in Hoboken, a BEECH. We should thank our lucky stars for global warming.

 

So her or she would be 20 right now.   That makes me feel old since I was 28 that day. heh.

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It's hard to compare this storm to the '96 storm 20 years ago. That's 20 years of technology between treating roads, more plows, shovels compared to snow blowers. This storm would have CRIPPLED the entire area for a few days I think 20 years ago.

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It's hard to compare this storm to the '96 storm 20 years ago. That's 20 years of technology between treating roads, more plows, shovels compared to snow blowers. This storm would have CRIPPLED the entire area for a few days I think 20 years ago.

 

Plows and salt are not a new invention. I'll give you snowblower proliferation, we probably had a lot less heart attacks then we would have had 20 years ago. I very much remember the 96 storm, my wife (girlfriend at the time) lived across the street from me and I dug a path for her and her head was barely above the snow, but she is 5ft tall. Her Firebird was also completely disappeared under the snow, the drifting was bad but we also had more snow. This was a lot of snow for one day, but 96 is probably far worse.

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It's hard to compare this storm to the '96 storm 20 years ago. That's 20 years of technology between treating roads, more plows, shovels compared to snow blowers. This storm would have CRIPPLED the entire area for a few days I think 20 years ago.

 

I agree.  I was living in West Milford at the time, and the only way you could tell that there were cars in the driveway was by the antennas poking through the snow.  The plows pushed so much snow in front of the driveway that I had to hire someone with a back hoe to dig me out.  And that massive storm was followed by more snowstorms every few days for a couple of weeks.  The Winter of '96 broke my spirit.

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My Auger quit about halfway through on my hand-me-down Craftsman.  Not sure yet id the shear pin snapped or the auger control belt broke.  The cable from the handle down inside seems to be engaging ok.

If shear pin, no worries, if belt that means I have to take apart the housing to get at it.  Not something I want to tackle in the cold.

 

I also lost a bead on one tire, so looking into tricks to fix that.  Seems as though if you tighten a belt around the tread to squeeze the rubber in the middle, it should forced the bead back to the edges long enough to get some air pressure in there.

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My Auger quit about halfway through on my hand-me-down Craftsman.  Not sure yet id the shear pin snapped or the auger control belt broke.  The cable from the handle down inside seems to be engaging ok.

If shear pin, no worries, if belt that means I have to take apart the housing to get at it.  Not something I want to tackle in the cold.

 

I also lost a bead on one tire, so looking into tricks to fix that.  Seems as though if you tighten a belt around the tread to squeeze the rubber in the middle, it should forced the bead back to the edges long enough to get some air pressure in there.

 

Crazy dangerous, perform at your own risk.  Shoot some cold start spray (aerosol ether) into the tire, just a squirt, and light a match.  FOOM!  Bead set, tire inflated.

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I also lost a bead on one tire, so looking into tricks to fix that. Seems as though if you tighten a belt around the tread to squeeze the rubber in the middle, it should forced the bead back to the edges long enough to get some air pressure in there.

That trick works great. Best to get weight off of the flat, then tie a rope or flat webbing around the center of the tread, poke a stick or big screwdriver under the rope, and start twisting until you've compressed the center of the tire enough that the bead is re-seated.

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My Auger quit about halfway through on my hand-me-down Craftsman.  Not sure yet id the shear pin snapped or the auger control belt broke.  The cable from the handle down inside seems to be engaging ok.

If shear pin, no worries, if belt that means I have to take apart the housing to get at it.  Not something I want to tackle in the cold.

 

I also lost a bead on one tire, so looking into tricks to fix that.  Seems as though if you tighten a belt around the tread to squeeze the rubber in the middle, it should forced the bead back to the edges long enough to get some air pressure in there.

I've had to do that before with a sudden flat on the snow blower. Use a ratchet strap if you have one because the amount of squeeze you need to put on the tire is pretty substantial in order to get it to deform enough to re-seat.

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I've had to do that before with a sudden flat on the snow blower. Use a ratchet strap if you have one because the amount of squeeze you need to put on the tire is pretty substantial in order to get it to deform enough to re-seat.

 

that, and use some caulk if needed to help make a seal long enough to get the bead to seat.

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