October Snowstorm: Granby, East Granby Residents Tell Their Powerful Stories

Granby-East Granby Patch (let's hear it for our new name!) is your community platform, and we've gathered your stories through our Facebook page. They are touching, angry, empathetic and beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing them.

Jennifer Smith Matson: We were just new to the neighborhood when the storm hit. We became very close with our neighbors. The men went house to house with chainsaws trying to help each other out. We had a generator so we took turns with our neighbors cooking and combining dinners so our kids could be warm and fed hot food. In the end, someone in our neighborhood left a $50 visa giftcard in our mailbox with no name on it.... thanking us for helping our neighbors and bringing everyone together! With all that said, I hope it does not happen again this Oct!

James Ullmann Trying to find gas for the generator .

Nina DiGennaro Gravlin Looking back there are good and bad memories. We have a wood stove, so we weren’t cold, but we didn’t have water and that was the hardest part. I remember melting snow on the wood stove so we could rinse dishes. But my fondest memories are how my kids handled it. They were great! (8 and 6) and they just loved playing outside. Rarely complained about not having their technology. They helped with yard cleanup and I would give them rides in the wheel barrow. At night we would play board games by candle light and went to bed by 8:00 because that’s all there was. It was hard to go 11 days without power, but it was so great to see the people in Granby help each other out! We invited people over for to share our warmth, and our friends with water were more than happy to share.

Rachel Haywood I grew up in Granby. But lived in Enfield for the last few years. Was moving back the weekend of the storm. My car was in the shop getting the heat fixed at Tims automotive next to Granby pizza. Had the moving truck fully loaded and ready to go when the flakes started falling. I drove back roads from Enfield, through Suffield. The snow was coming down so fast so quickly and it had just begun. Tree limbs were falling all around us and a transformer blew up right above our truck at a light in Suffield and I felt electricity go thru my body. Through many detours, fallen and falling limbs we made it to Granby center. With no hope of making it up to North Granby onto Lost Acres, I decided to go to my mothers on West Granby Road. The detour on Rt 20 led to a quick decision to try and make it up Kelly Lane and back down Bushy Hill. We made it about halfway up Kelly and a tree had fallen and trying to manuever around and gun it up the hill I got stuck. We were so close, yet so far from our destination on West Granby Road. Afraid to exit the vehicle with limds falling everywhere in a complete blackout; we were finally rescued by a neighbor and another passerby. They were able to maneuver my truck and back it down the hill. I wish I knew who they were so I could thank them. The way people come together in a crisis is amazing. I did make it to my mothers that night. What is normally a 40 minute ride took 4 1/2 hours. I could not believe the devestation in Granby as I awoke the next morning. Aside from moving, my memories include boiling water on the grill to bathe, losing my Grandmothers beloved mulberry tree in the back yard, trying to find gasoline and being without power for 9 days. It has been so cold so quickly I have a feeling we will be in for a hard winter. Hopefully nothing as severe as this. As my 90 y/o Grandmother said, this kind of thing only happens once in a lifetime.

Karen Blake Largay I remember getting my power back and some of the Granby Football team coming to my house for showers, food and a warm place to sleep - I think there were 8 boys-head to toe with the sectional couch pushed together and every blanket we could find...makes me smile to think about it-bad storm, great memories...

Shirley Ryan I had just given away my generator (to my daughter) because we NEVER have long power outages, and it was hard for me to handle! So, I had no heat, lights or water. I do have a small propane stove in my family room, which heated well in that room, but didn't do much for the remainder of the house. I slept in that room until it was just too cold. My friends on Day St. insisted that I move in with them for a couple of days. What a treat to have a warm house and a hot shower! They were so generous to many of us. Once my daughter had her power back, the generator was returned, fired up, and watched over by my excellent neighbor. The first couple of days seemed like an adventure, but it got old really, really fast. I took advantage of the Senior Center services. What a blessing that was. Most people seemed to be very concerned about their neighbors and reached out to help those who couldn't take care of themselves. Although I would not wish this storm on us ever again, I saw many instances of the best in people.

Evelyn Smith Brown A friend of ours was without power and heat. We had heat and a place we could cook. So she and her small dog came over and spent a few days. We had fun. Listened to the radio at night. Used up a couple 9 volt batteries to do that. Had karosene lanterns going in the dark as we listened to music and news and chatted. It was a fun time.

Susan Bochiaro Trovato We were fortunate enough to stay the week with our second family, EGFD. We lived at the firehouse for the week. The kids had a blast and thought it was the greatest to sleepover at the firehouse. The members of the fire department were out all day and night for most of the week. The women enjoyed cooking big dinners. We were also able to have a Halloween party inside the firehouse,the kids went trick or treating to the doors of the firetrucks and the cadets sat inside handing out candy. Those were the good memories. We did have damage at our own home and had some obnoxious neighbor write negative stuff on facebook about the department when they helped remove a tree from our yard and couldn't help them, who didn't need it. That pissed me off b/c my husband and the others were away from their families helping the town and needed to make sure we were taken care of first. That was the not so good memory.

Robin Bray I remember how much I enjoyed the sense of community and spending nights by the wood stove playing backgammon by the light of oil lamps with my wife as we listened to a prairie Home Companion on the battery powered radio. And, I remember the feeling of missing that and the wonderful silence, when the power returned. Maybe we should have a night without power this October to remember and share that sense of community and spend some fun times at home with our families without the intrusion of technology.

Aimee Gilbert For us with a small farm I remember thinking this is what our fore fathers went through before some of the modern conveniences. After the snow and ice had melted, we needed to drive to the brook, use 5 gallon pails to get water, bring them up to the truck, dump into a larger tub and repeat until there was enough water to bring home for the cows and goats. Sometimes it was more than one trip to the brook. Then Andy decided to rewire the well pump so that it could connect to the generator to get water. Boy was he glad he did that as our power did not come back on until 30 mintues before the start of day 9 without.

Teresa Thomas I remember it was the beginning of the end for my dad.

Jennifer Thomas Johnson I think of it as the storm that killed my father.