We were expecting a major ice storm lasting through the day and into tomorrow. When I got up there was snow on the ground and the roads were slick. We had sleet coming down. I voted against opening the office due to ongoing sleet and difficult driving but my boss wanted to go ahead. So I got to the office about 45 minutes before opening to do my paperwork. I talked to the boss, who came in early today ON HIS DAY OFF to do paperwork (he has GOT to be crazy!) and convinced him it was unwise to open when the roads were already dangerous and they were expected to get worse. We want to take care of our patients but we don't want to endanger them in an icy parking lot (not cleared yet) or cause avoidable problems for staff driving on icy roads.
I was surprised he agreed with me, but he did. We started canceling appointments and calling staff.
Now I'm home, it's above freezing, we have rain falling and the major roads have essentially no ice.
Just call me 'Dr. Little', as in 'Chicken Little'. Cluck, Cluck.
FWIW: I think the experts still expect things to freeze this afternoon/evening but who knows. Also, my concerns about parking lot safety in ice storms have a factual basis. Some years back our x-ray tech slid on the ice walking from her car to the office and sustained multiple fractures. She was out of work for over a month.
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Management woes - the sky isn't falling
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ACCUMULATIONS... WIDESPREAD STORM TOTAL ACCUMULATIONS OF 20 TO 30 INCHES... WITH SOME LOCATIONS IN EXCESS OF 30 INCHES.
They raised our estimate as well...doubled it, in fact. I was expecting to wake to over a foot but it was more like 1/2 of that. It was, however, very wet and packed as the temperature remained within a couple degrees of freezing. A few degrees colder and it would have been much deeper. I was able to get out and to the post office this AM and noted many guys struggling with snow blowers and throwers that just bogged down in this stuff. Shovels and plows are about all that works in wet snow. I expect to see a proliferation of snow men in front yards over the course of the day.
Check the blizzard thread for a link to pics from my place. It's still snowing but we checked in open ground area and was 26". So far news is saying total snowfall this season is a record for the area, and this snowfall is at 3rd largest, maybe make 2nd all time for the area before finished. Still have a few hours of snow to come here in Maryland.
I wouldn't be online if we got that much. I'd be freezing in a power-free house with no phone service and no public utilities expected until March. There's no way our local snow removal efforts could cope with a really big storm. That's the bad news. The good news is that would probably be a 1000 year storm around here.
Even some colder places don't cope well with big storms that drop 2 feet at once. One Christmas back in the early '80s I was visiting my folks in the Denver area when we got a storm that dropped maybe 30". It all but shut down the airport. The roads were undriveable for a couple of days. The Broncos were in a big game, and IIRC the team had to be helicoptered to the airport where they had scraped one runway to allow 'emergency' flights in and out. At least we didn't lose power. Underground utilities are the only way to go if you get really bad winter weather.
For light and also added heat we have several of these, the self starting type, and keep half dozen bottles for backup. We have eyehooks in the ceiling at various locations and use decorative metal chain so the tops hang about 18" below the ceiling. Low enough to keep the heat on ceiling spread widely and high enough to keep animals and little children from touching them.
Before the hospital/professional building moved, my doctor's group was across the street from a private school.
Their standing policy re: snow/ice was to close when that school closed. (School closings are announced on local TV outlets.) Saved calls to the staff- they could just check TV. Patients knew that rescheduling would soon be forthcoming.
I need to ask if they have a new plan since the facilities moved. 
Angeline
The county schools are always all open or all closed. They close if there is any significant ice anywhere in the county. In a rural area it can take a long time to get the ice off of all the side roads. The result is that they close FAR too often.
I'm not sure but I think the local schools have been in session only one day this week. If they aren't careful their makeup days will push the end of the school year past the graduation date.
I should have been working, but I wasn't. That meant I was home when the sump started to overflow because the pump wasn't pumping.
At least we didn't get any water inside the house.
The sump is in the garage. The curious thing about it, though, is that it appears most of the water is coming up from the bottom of the sump itself. Very curious.
should have perforated pipe around the foundation which then comes into the sump area, either the sides or under the soil there. If the surrounding soil becomes saturated, then it will start to seep upward into the house, but the sump being lower will show signs of it first. Probably ground around your house is soggy, very wet, saturated. It also will be a problem if you have a septic tank since that won't be able to drain into saturated soil very well.
I presume that there is a French Drain, which is what I think you are describing, but in my case it is outside the foundation, not inside. No sump is required for that in my case.
I think that the problem is that when the garage was added on there was NOT any drain placed. The result is that we get some seepage through the brick exterior walls of the garage. I think we also get a little bit of seepage coming up through the concrete of the garage floor. The amount of water is usually quite small, though it is obviously not something we want to ignore. When we realized we had this problem a few years back the contractor recommended installing a sump and pump in the garage. It has mostly worked, but at this point most of the water is not coming from the seepage in the wall/floor. It's coming up from the bottom of that sump which should NOT happen because the sump does not have any connecting drains. It's just a hole in the lowest spot in he garage floor.
The sump has a plastic liner that USED to have an intact bottom, but somewhere along the line something poked a hole in the bottom of the liner. Now, instead of having a minor problem we have water coming up through the hold in the bottom of the sump almost fast enough to be able to watch it rise. The pump had become clogged, and I unclogged it, but it is working almost continuously because of the natural spring that is developing in my garage.
So you are right that the ground is soaked and the water table is high, but we still should not be having this particular problem. It's annoying. I'm hoping the water table doesn't rise enough to cause seepage in the house proper. At least the septic system is still working so far.
That's what is doing it. Just hope your concrete doesn't get soaked and then it freezes. Most likely won't in an enclosed garage area. I sure wouldn't take long showers, even if not having septic problems, yet. When the water table gets that high it will backflush into the septic tank eventually. The good thing is it will push stuff back into the tank where it will sink, hopefully. Of course the bad thing is eventually there's no place for inside water to go. When that happens to use we run a hose from the washer into the front yard area and just do what's necessary till the water table sinks back down.
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