Well, it finally arrived. I'm guessing, from the amount of snow on my fire escape, that we've already received at least 8" of the stuff, and it's still coming down very steadily.
Where I am (south-central PA) the snow began around 3 p.m. Friday but didn't start sticking to the roads until approximately 7. "Approximately" b/c the store where I work was mobbed -- and it's not even a grocery, although we do sell the usual stuff (milk, eggs, bread, cigarettes) that people want to buy when a major snowstorm is coming. That wasn't really a surprise: I walked past a real grocery on my way to work and it was mobbed; I was expecting to be busy.
But being incredibly busy at the cash register meant that I didn't notice that the parking lot was getting a new white coat until one of my coworkers pointed it out to me. I tried -- I really did -- to clear the wheelchair ramp, although I didn't think any of our wheelchair-bound customers was stupid enough to come out in this, and I was right about that: either they shopped earlier today, or bought everything they needed yesterday.
Here's what it was like: I shoveled the wheelchair ramp. I salted it. I scraped off the sidewalk in front of the store and salted that. And looked at the wheelchair ramp again: ten minutes later, you could hardly tell that it had even been shoveled & salted.
That was when we only had about 1 or 2" of snow.
As the snow deepened, we saw fewer customers, especially those in cars, although since the store is downtown we still got a lot of foot traffic -- more than I would have expected, certainly. But it slowed enough that we were able to close on time (midnight) and get all the end-of-shift work done so we could get out of there & get home.
On foot. Walking in the street as much as possible, because although the plows are out, nobody is shoveling their sidewalk at that hour.
Consider this an open thread to tell your stories of East Coast Snowpocalypse 2010, and thanks for indulging me.