Our neighbors ROCK!
With the threat of more snow on the horizon (another 12-18 inches anyone?), Noel and I decided this morning that we needed to free at least one of our cars. Since our block is shorter than the block my car was on, we decided to go for his.
For a while, Noel and I were digging it alone, with just one shovel and a trash can between us. But then, neighbors started to peak out of their front doors. “What are ya’ll doin’?” they would yell. “Shoveling out the street” we would holler back. “Let me grab my shovel!” was the usual response.
Soon, we had a dozen people out helping. Dave (who doesn’t even live on our block!) volunteered the use of his truck. One load at a time, the snow started to disappear. Another team started at the other end of the block.
Five hours after we started, we got pavement! And I knew for sure that we live on one fantastic block in East Baltimore–thank you to everyone who pitched in!!
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You guys are amazing!
That is an amazing job!
Great job on the street! Not sure if it was yours, but I walked past a street that looked hand-shoveled and I was in awe.
Morgan–I think there have been quite a few blocks hand shoveling out. We were scared by the prospect of shoveling 40-50 inches of snow. I’m only 63 inches tall…shoveling this was hard enough…can’t imagine shoveling that much!
Wow, Beth, such amazing photos!! SO much snow! Such a beautiful story of community, too – and very, very impressive snow moving!
How sweet. I can’t believe you have that much snow and the city isn’t doing anything about it! Up here in Portland they start scooping it into dump trucks immediately. And yikes to the new storm!
Astra-I was really amazed at my neighbors. Several of the people who helped us out didn’t even have cars on the street, but they were all out there because they want to be able to *think* about the idea of parking on the street before April! It was really a great community moment.
Beth, I wish I had your neighbors. Over in our part of the SW, it’s been more every man for himself with a few instances of folks really working together. I think I need to bake a little something for our next door neighbors who have been completely wonderful to us.
That is awesome!!
Kate – not sure how much the city CAN do about it. Baltimore wasn’t built for this much snow. There is nowhere to easily put it. And, for example, our street is too narrow to even run a pickup truck with a snowplow on it…. Can’t really push it too many places. Fill up a dump truck here and …. where do you take it? Nearest spaces are a mile or so away….
I just finished a long (about 20 blocks each way) walk to Harbor East and back. I thought we had it bad over here, but yikes, Fells Point is like a disaster area. It doesn’t even LOOK like there’s been a plow through there. I did see a backhoe clearing out some street just west of Patterson Park, but this storm is really grounding the city.
Wow, that is quite a work out! Luckily we live in an unincorporated area of town, and we have our own personal plow – he even does the end of your driveway so that you don’t have a wall of snow to plow through at the end of the drive!
Wonderful neighbors you have!
Oh wow and here I am in California, complaining about the 50 degrees weather. This is just amazing!
Amazing teamwork! Where’d you put all the snow you shoveled?
That is Balto for you! Great people who do what needs to be done.
Man, the folks in my hood were more interested in drinking at the corner
bar than helping each other out. This is nice to see!
Hurray! You guys are wonderful! After all the achey/breaky arms and sore legs, I hope you get together for one kickass pot-luck party!
I’d suggest sugar on snow, but I think you guys will have had your fill! And… I hope someone leaves enough for a snowman or two!
Good luck on this next blast…
We were able to dig our cars out, too, but getting them out of our driveway and up the street was a whole different challenge! I hope you are staying warm today. Here in DC it is an all out blizzard.
It’s an all out blizzard here in Baltimore too…the snow is coming down at an unbelievable rate, and it looks like some heavy banding is setting up.
It’s great when everyone gets together like that to solve a problem.
Wish that happened more often.
This really make me smile.
wow this is AWESOME. If you do not mind I am going to post this on our local message board.
Great shots!
Wow, I love your blog. I am gonna give my brother, who lives in CA., your blog address so he can see how Baltimore is surviving Feb. 2010. I read about your comfort food of cupcakes and I can relate. It was my job to lick and scape the remains of the cake batter bowl before it went into the sink. So, I survived eating raw eggs in cupcakes and cookies.!! Thanks for the article.
OMWWWWWWWWWWWW Thats a lot of snow!!!!!!