Blizzard

I guess the weather here has hit the news wire services overseas because I got an email from Francis, my former colleague in France, asking if everything was okay here. The short answer is yes but there was some excitement around here.
When we were in southwest France last year, the big weather event that got people's attention was called a tempete something approaching hurricane like winds in the coastal areas. Here we don't get hurricanes but the wind does blow once in awhile and when it mixes frigid temperatures and snow, well that's a blizzard. We had one day of school canceled due to blowing snow (not falling snow) that drifted over roads, cars, you name it. We had another day where Tess and I walked to school with a forty mph wind at our backs. We got there in record time needless to say.
During that day many very big trees fell - here's another (actually from the previous day)- and some roofs blew off ...all that happened while we were in school that day. The lights flickered a few times; I could tell the kids were praying for a blackout but we rode it out though one of my students did get a cell phone message from her mother saying a tree had fallen on their house. When the girl asked her mom if she should come home, her mom said that it wasn't serious.
Cell phones...sigh...
K