A few days ago, I heard that it was supposed to rain today. Just rain. Nothing wintry involved. But this morning as I was leaving to go to work, I soon noticed that it was in fact freezing rain. The roads were really slick and I had to go really slow. I live north of Baltimore and I work part-time at a store right by the Pennsylvania line. After a couple of nervous miles of icy driving, struggling to go up slick hills and almost losing control of my car multiple times (I even got sideways and brushed a guardrail), I decided to just turn around and go back home. I used extreme caution going back home, and when I got back I called work and told them I would not be showing up because I could barely drive and I had all but spun out while attempting to get there. They understood and said I made a good choice. I only made it about a third of the way there and only spent a little under 40 minutes away from home.
A couple of hours later, I heard that all of the roads by my store were closed, so I wasn't really needed up there anyway. My mom said she would have made me stay home and call out if she had been up when I left (she actually works at the same store and she was scheduled to be off). She also said I made a wise choice and was glad I did not get into a serious crash and badly hurt. Other people in the area weren't so lucky, as there were over 100 reported crashes in the northern Baltimore suburbs, some with injuries and even unfortunately a fatal one. There was also a 49-car pileup up in Philadelphia that happened right around the time I turned around and went home. Not long after that, I heard that there were 32 cars that had slid off a section of U.S. Route 1 back down here. So I should feel lucky that I got home safely in this surprise ice storm, and that I didn't get in a big crash.
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