Friday the 13th Storm

My 29th birthday was on October 13th (a Friday). It was not a typical birthday for me. The largest accumulation of snow recorded for Buffalo, in the month of October, fell on Friday the 13th (some the night before). Our power went out on the night of the 12th and didn't come back on until the night of the 14th. I am one of the luckiest in Buffalo, because several of my co-workers still don't have power and it's been a week.
Buffalo was declared a disaster area on the 13th and a driving ban was put into place. So many things happen when the power goes out on such a large scale. First of all, the county water pumps don't work so they told us to conserve water. I did that. Then they said that we had to boil any water that we cooked with or drank. Because there was no power anywhere, I couldn't escape my house and lets say, go to a movie. Everything was closed for at least two days. No groceries, no gas, no laundry, no TV, no movies. Nothing!!! I was going crazy by the end of the first day. I had my friend drive as close as he could to my house and then I hiked out to meet him so that we could drive out of town to find a movie theater that was open. So for a couple hours I was entertained. It really goes to show how much I rely on media to entertain me at night time. Pretty sad, I know.
On the second day our basement had 5 inches of water in it and the water was just about to crest over the stairs. So my roommate and I started to carry the water out by bucket; up and down the stairs. After about 30 minutes I was just exhausted and my hands hurt from all the shoveling the day before and now carrying heavy buckets. My sister soon came home and she joined us for another 30 minutes. But we only lowered the water by about an inch an a half. We left to go a friends house who still had power so that we could charge our cell phones. I also used my car to charge my cell phone as well. Anyways, we were lucky that we found a submergable pump at Lowes (that was out of sump pumps) and by the time my roommate got home with the pump the power had turned on. The pump did the rest of the work that night. No more buckets of water for me.
My office was closed for three days. So I didn't have to go to work but I visited some of the restaurants to see how they were fairing anyways. Anyways, I thought I'd share this, my most recent adventure with everyone. I've included a picture of the road I drive to work everyday and my car. Enjoy!!