Snow Stories: Stony Brook Family Makes It Through the Blizzard

Stacey Jolley is a Three Village mother of two who works as a nurse at Mather Hospital. She left work on Friday afternoon at 3:30 p.m., not long before cars began getting stuck on major roadways like Route 112, Route 83, and Nesconset Highway. She and husband Tom faced all kinds of adversity after the blizzard hit – including losing the heat in their home and putting out a kitchen stove fire. Here Stacey shares her family's story.

Now that we got plowed out as of 3 p.m. [on Monday] and Petro was able to send a repair man out to fix our oil burner so we could have heat and hot water, we had a lot of running to do the minute I got home from work, especially since the schools were closed again...

We expected a decent snow storm as we had been well warned by the media. We lost our heat at 4 a.m. Saturday morning. The oil company knew they couldn't get anyone out to us 'till Sunday due to high volume need for the technicians. We explained we had a 6-year-old, a 9-year-old, and an 84-year-old with a cardiac history in the house. They promised to do the best they could.

My husband and I did our best to get out and shovel frequently to try to keep up with the snow. Our snow blower broke early on. The roof of our shed in the backyard collapsed from the weight of the snow and I had to get up on a ladder that sunk into the snow halfway up so I could clear the roof so it wouldn't collapse more.

Plenty of friends offered to let us come stay with them to keep warm but we couldn't get out to get to them. My neighbor lent us a space heater for Mom to use in her apartment, and we have an electric fireplace in our room that really helped. My husband turned on the electric stove burners in the kitchen, but it made the light cover above the stove melt and fall down onto the stove, where it caught fire. The smoke alarms went off and we were able to put out the fire ourselves.

My boss called Sunday to check to see if I would be at the hospital on Monday and I had to tell her I wouldn't make it in. She wanted to send a driver to get me, but too many streets were not plowed to be near enough to walk to meet up, so the hospital had to do without me.

... My husband called Brookhaven on Monday numerous times telling them how badly we needed heat and we couldn't get it until we got a plow but the reply was always the same... they would tell the highway department. Finally they stopped answering the phone.

Monday afternoon the husbands [on the block] started to get a little stir crazy and went out with shovels and snow blowers to try to clear the streets themselves. It kept them busy and distracted. We were thrilled when finally at 3 p.m. the payloader came through and made two sweeps to clear the road. The oil company was able to be there by 5 and by 6 p.m. we had heat. That hot shower felt great after three days of shoveling!

Do you have a snow story to share? Email your story and photos to ChristineS@patch.com.