The Blizzard of '93 (Part 1)

It was March 12, 1993, around 10:15PM. I hopped in my car to drive from my apartment in Weaverville to my job at a hotel in Asheville. Snow had been falling steadily for a few hours. The roads were pretty slushy and starting to freeze. Although it had no heat to speak of, my little '71 VW convertible made the trip just fine.

The hotel was an older one, built in the 1960's. It had restaurant and bar space, but neither had been used since the early 80's. The hotel was five stories high with 92 rooms. Although it had an elevator, the doors to the rooms all faced outside with access provided by walkways surrounding each floor.

Throughout the night, it continued to snow hard. During my rounds at night I could see the utility lines collecting snow. By the next morning the snow was about a foot deep - too deep for the morning crew to come in to relieve me: no housekeepers, no desk clerks, no maintenance, no manager. I made the first of many calls to my wife - to whom I had been married less than a year. This first call was to let her know I wouldn't be home any time soon.

During the day Saturday I checked in a steady stream of guests, most of them local folks who had lost power. (The owner gave me permission to lift the "no locals" rule due to the storm.) I remember one young couple who had apparently checked in the previous day. They came down to use the pay phone in the lobby around noon. They had asked earlier in the day if I knew how the roads were. Despite telling them I had no idea since I'd been at work the entire time, they asked me a couple more times that morning.

Eventually, the young man asked me if I could give them a roll of quarters for a 10 dollar bill. I did. They walked over to the pay phone. The guy used it first. He was visibly upset, but talked in a rather hushed tone for a couple minutes, then hung up. Next it was the girl's turn. She dialed the number, slipped several quarters into the slot and waited. Unlike her companion, her words were clear in spite of her sobbing.

"Mom?...Hey." (pause) "Um...I'm in Asheville." (another, longer pause) "I rode down here last night with Michael."

From the rest of the conversation, I gathered that she and Michael drove down from Tennessee the day before. I'm not sure how old Michael was, but it was clear that the girl was still young enough to be in high school. She explained how she skipped class on Friday to spend the night with Michael in Asheville. The couple had stayed in their room all evening and all night, oblivious to anything but each other. The next morning, they woke up to find that they were snowed in. The volume of her voice remained fairly steady, but I wasn't able to catch much else due to other guests at the desk. She continued talking until she ran out of quarters, gave her mom the hotel's phone number, her room number and a hurried good-bye, then walked with Michael back to the elevator.

As night set in, snow fell heavily and surface depth approached two feet. I had taken one of the spare TVs and hooked it up on the lobby to keep up with the news and weather. The snow was forecast to continue through Monday night. It became clear that I would not be going home any time soon even if other staff members were able to come in.

I was the only employee and worked straight through until about 8 o'clock Sunday morning (33 hours). Mary, one of the housekeepers, came through the front door with one of her children in tow. With the hotel approaching capacity and snow piled up on the walkways, normal housekeeping service would have been impossible. We talked it over and decided it best to ask all the guests to bring their sheets and towels down to the laundry room to exchange for clean ones. Mary would work on the laundry each day until more help arrived...