One NASTY storm outside...
The storm that was predicted came, and it looks like it's going to be a real beast. Even though Iowa's not in the epicenter, the wind's blowing and howling like a wild thing, and outside of the towns, blowing snow's making visibility very poor indeed. Combine that with sub-zero temperatures (once you take wind chill into account) and you have something that I do not want to go out into.
At least here in Iowa, and the North in general, we're used to severe winters and geared up to deal with them (although quite a few cities have apparently run through the money they've budgeted to deal with snow even before this mess hit). I feel sorry for the people farther south. Tulsa's getting more snow than they ever have had since they've been keeping records, and Dallas is also getting hit hard. Like Washington DC, they aren't used to anything like this much snow, and they don't have the infrastructure in place to deal with it. Not to mention, most people in those places don't know how to drive in snow and ice. A friend of mine used to tell me that she could always tell the out-of-state students at ISU, because after every snowfall, they were the ones whose cars were in the ditch. I can testify that even a lifetime of driving in this stuff's no guarantee of staying out of ditches---it's happened to me more than once---but it does help.
I am going NOWHERE until the weather clears up. I've got food in the house, the power seems to be staying on, and I've got nowhere I need to be. Going outside in this nonsense strikes me as insanely risky, and I am not one to take unnecessary risks.