After the latest hurricane force winds drifted in roads and plugged driveways, the snow was falling again in force Friday on Anchorage's South Hillside. There was 4 inches on the desk outside my office window by noon, about the time I read bad news from the National
Weather Service:

WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 9 PM AKST THIS EVENING ... STORM TOTALS RANGING FROM 4 TO 8 INCHES IN TOWN TO 8 TO 12 INCHES ALONG THE HILLSIDE.

And then comes this from the Alaska Department of Transportation:

Eighteen inches of heavy snow is anticipated to fall in the Anchorage bowl and the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities is encouraging people to stay home if they can in order to help city and state crews manage the snow removal.

The department is moving resources in from other areas around the state to supplement the equipment and operators already in Anchorage to help manage the storm. “Know that your Department of Transportation Maintenance and Operations,” said Commissioner Marc Luiken, “has all available equipment and crew out working to clear the streets as quickly as possible.”

How many ways can one say Noooooooo!

If I wanted to live in Valdez -- snow capital of Alaska -- I would have moved there. Thirty years or so in Anchorage, and I've never seen a winter like this. OK, I take that back. I have seen these winter conditions before, later in the season, maybe April, after a whole winter's worth of snow had the left berms so high around my driveway that the snowblower could no longer loft snow over them.

But this is the start of February. April is two months away. And when the wind isn't blowing on the Hillside, it seems it's snowing and snowing and snowing. I feel like I've spent almost as much time this winter shoveling and blowing snow as I have working. Snow removal tasks seem unending. The snowblower has seen so much service bolts have rattled loose and drive belts, normally in need of replacement only every couple years if that, have worn out and broken. I've replaced them once, and the way things are going they may need to be replaced again.

The maintenance just takes more time. It's like the winter of 2011-12 hates me and the neighbors. If it isn't snowing a foot, the winds are blowing 100 mph, and everyone is hanging on hoping they survive. I've been lucky in that we've suffered no wind damage. Many around us have not. One neighbor lost a roof. Another had a window knocked loose, which opened a path for hurricane-driven rains in-between cold snaps to flood the house.

The flooding caused major damage. Several neighbors have had trees toppled onto their roofs of their cars.

It almost makes me feel guilty about whining about a little snow, but it's no longer "a little snow." It's an Alaska-sized mountain of snow!

Time to go: it's time to shovel and blow some more. It's what Anchorage calls The Big Wild Life. It's a big wild something all right.

Contact Craig Medred at craig(at)alaskadispatch.com. He will get back to you once he's done snowblowing.