In Oklahoma, we used to gripe that we didn't get distinct-enough seasons. Well, forget that crap. Distinct enough for ya, now?
In the waning hours as the Jan. 12 storm bore down on the state, local Wal-Marts, Targets, Albertsons and other food stores were mobbed for bread, milk, pet food and toilet paper until they looked like soundstages for "Jericho."
According to The Oklahoman, Warehouse Market Manager Venicio Rivera spent most of the early hours of the "icepocalypse" (Chicken-Fried News' name for it, anyway) in his store, stocking.
"We've been hammered because of the weatherman's forecast," he said. "But the weatherman is a grocer's best friend. This happens every time."
When the powers that be drop the bomb, CFN'll be number five in the line at Wal-Mart while somebody does a price check on a can of chili.
Television weathermen argued fervently about who said the freezing rain, sleet (nay " "thunder sleet") and snow would start to fall in the morning Jan. 12 (like it did) or in the afternoon. Well " screw it " it fell. The migration of workers driving home from businesses hit shortly after noon and made the trek a crawl as freezing rain fell. Then the wrecks started.
According to the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, as of Jan. 18, 15 people had died on Oklahoma roads, and there had been 492 non-injury collisions, 171 personal injury collisions and nine fatal collisions since the weather had hit.
The hard icing everywhere " that stuff that looks like snow " was slicker 'n goose goo and hard as concrete. Ask us how we know.
OK, we'll tell. Bucky got a plastic document tub and took it down CFN hill, steering for what looked like a nice snowbank, and slammed into it ass over teakettle and busted his coccyx. We didn't know he had one, let alone what to do.
"We're seeing a lot of this," sighed the woman at the emergency room. "That white stuff isn't snow."
She gave him one of those doughnut-looking pillows and some ibuprofen. They don't put coccyges in casts very often.
As of Jan. 18, 2,499 people had been treated at Oklahoma hospitals for various injuries related to weather conditions, according to the Oklahoma State Department of Health (CFN interns don't count).
It could be worse " we could be in McAlester.
