Weather Woes

Last weekend was an exciting one, weather-wise.  As this week progressed, we learned more about the seriousness and the impact of the storm.

It started for us in eastern Hungary last Thursday with wind and rain during the day.  That evening, the rain turned to freezing rain.  When we left our home group meeting, Mike had to scrape ice from the car windows.  We were glad we were able to take three others home who were also at the meeting.  It would not have been fun to walk or wait for a bus in that nasty weather.  When we arrived home, Mike had to blow into the lock on the gate to free it from ice so we could open it.  We just stayed home the next two days in the bad weather.  Having lived many years in Minnesota, we were accustomed to waiting out a storm. But Hungarians are not.  Spring begins in March here; in fact, our temperatures the week before had been in the 50's.

We started hearing reports of how bad things were other places.  Tammy Swailes was in Budapest, arriving as the storm hit.  She made it safely, but many others did not.  Two main highways west of Budapest were jammed.  Accidents had stopped traffic and no one could leave their cars in the cold, blowing snow.  Hundreds were trapped for up to 20 hours, waiting to be rescued.  The Minister of the Interior sent text messages to every Hungarian cell phone saying, "Remain in your car.  If your gas runs out, move to another car and wait there."  We even received the message on our phones, but it was the best way to contact all those in trouble on the highway. The army resorted to using tanks to rescue as many people as possible.

The effects of the storm were worsened because it was a national holiday on Friday the 15th.  Many people took to the roads on the long weekend, ignoring the weather forecasts.  March 15 is the day Hungarians celebrate their short-lived independence from the Austrian Hapsburg monarchy in 1848.  Due to the storm, however, hundreds of commemorations and special celebrations were cancelled around the country.  We had been invited to a cook-out on that day, but of course, that was cancelled, too.  One interesting note:  the Austrians sent help to those stranded on Hungarian highways.  That was rather ironic, since Hungary was celebrating a revolt against Austria that weekend.

We received about 8 inches of snow with much higher snowdrifts.  On Sunday, the eldest grandma in church commented that she had never in her 80-plus years seen such a storm.  About an hour north of us, thousands of people were without electricity, some for several days because of the damage the ice caused to power lines.  Some of our Open Bible people in the area were affected, but thankfully, most of them heat with wood, so they were not left in the cold.  And we thank the Lord that not one person lost their life due to the storm.

Looks like we're expecting more cold weather this weekend and a little more snow, but the forecast is not nearly as serious as last week's was.  We thank God for his protection, and we are looking forward to spring!