[Sca-cooks] Wyoming....WAS Re Holiday Potlucks

[Bronwynmgn at aol.com]

In a message dated 12/11/2004 9:38:35 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
kerrimart at mindspring.com writes:

<<WHY do people run out and buy perishables right before a storm when they
*know* that the power is going to go out and everything in the fridge will
go bad?!?!?!?>>

If you've just had a blizzard, you don't need to worry about the power going 
out - if it does, you take everything in the fridge and stick it in a snowbank 
and it will be *colder* than it was in the fridge to begin with.  It's the 
stuff in the *freezer* that may not keep.

No, the issue Laurensa is talking about is that if the word "snow" appears in 
the forecast, even if it is followed by the word "flurries", people here in 
South Central PA make the automatic assumption that everything in town is going 
to be shut down for at least the next three or four days, nobody will be able 
to get to a shopping center, and the trucks that deliver the food to the 
shopping center won't get through either.

In the last 20 years I can remember about 4 snowfalls that caused a situation 
like that.  Most of the time we get an inch or so at once and the roads are 
clear within an hour or so afterwards.  Six inches may cause some very rural 
side roads to be impassable for up to 24 hours, especially if we get drifting 
(it's amazing how quickly 6 inches of wind-driven, already fallen snow can fill 
up a road between two fields after the plow has just gone by).

Mind you, these are the same people who will happily go out and drive around 
at full speed in their SUVs during an ice storm, because "I've got 4-wheel 
drive!".

Brangwayna