Xiaoniu 小妞

This past Friday the 13th has lived up to its reputation of being a very day. First off, all the people out in the Buffalo area were hit very hard with a freak, record setting snow storm. October 13th, 22.6″ of snow!!

At times snow was falling at a rate of 4″ per hour. That adds up fast. And the part that I think is most interesting is that the snow was very wet and heavy. If it was light and fluffy that 22.6″ inches would have doubled or tripled.

From what I’ve read the storm did more damage and more people were without power from this snow than from a storm in the past where 82″ of snow hit the ground. I just can’t imaging that much. We’ll probably get 82″ of snow in a full season (give or take) . BBC has some good pictures from the Buffalo snow.

BTW for those who are not aware of Buffalo and it’s unfortunate location, this freak snow storm was actually kinda normal, just not this early in the year. This storm was a combination of a very warm Lake Erie and a cold front out of Canada. Cold air blowing over the length of the lake and all the moisture is dropped as snow on Buffalo.

The second issue that occurred on Friday hits a little closer to home. I got a call from Sue at 10:30. Immediately, I can tell something is wrong, but I’m patient. If something was serious she would have been screaming or at least telling immediately. We talk about normal things and then she tells me, “My car hit a deer tonight.” Go on. “Mike hit a deer with my car driving to his parent’s house”.

She goes on to tell me more about the accident, how it happened and how much damage there is to the car. Fortunately, Mike didn’t get hurt. The deer on the other hand didn’t make it.

It went down like this. He was driving home and came upon a group of deer crossing the road. He stopped and waited for them to cross. All is clear so he starts to move. Immediately, a small deer jumps right in front of the car. No time to stop and boom. He was going all of 5 MPH (or maybe a little faster, but pretty slow since he was just accelerating), but the deer was small. It didn’t make it. I don’t know the gory details and if I did I would post them here. It’s just a sad accident.

As for the car, it looks like the bumper cover is cracked and the grill below the bumper is shattered. It’s still drivable, but it sounds like we’ll be doing some scrounging in junk yards for parts. Or, most likely we’ll just leave it as is for now. The car is really falling apart. As long as it makes it until next year we’ll all be happy.

On that note, keep your eyes peeled next time you’re driving at night (looking for deer and other animals) and stay at home on Friday the 13th, as long as you don’t live in Buffalo.

PS: I’m not implying that Mike didn’t have his eyes open. I almost hit a deer (with Sue’s car!) last weekend when driving home. I wasn’t as attentive as I should have and it was a close one. I shudder when I think of what would have happened if I hit a 200lb. deer with her car.