"Was the wind finding slivers of space to pry open and thrust that cold inside?"”

Yes, we were forewarned about the storm that “chilled” the Catskills earlier this month. No rain was expected. So we’d see nothing like what engulfed Buffalo in December. That ghostliness was not only from the icy, white shroud covering everything. There were also the deaths of citizens who ventured outside, or who simply couldn’t get back home. 

That haunting image of the city was once-in-a-century. Anyway, Buffalo sits beside Lake Ontario. Unpredictable at any time. By contrast, Delaware and Sullivan counties could hardly keep the meager snowfall that fell a week earlier. 

Whatever cold reached us from Buffalo was discomfitingly bearable. We carried on with our daily affairs, simply covering up with an extra layer of wool and ensuring a good supply of heating oil. 

The negative 24 degrees Celsius temperature forecast for February 3 was not to be ignored, though. Whether or not that included the wind chill, it was serious. A really cold night, continuing through Saturday, was approaching. We heeded warnings—stock up on needs, keep faucets open, remain indoors—from media and utility companies. 

Notwithstanding the unpredictability of global climate changes and the bizarre events around Buffalo, we did not forget at the end of January that our Catskill winter had hardly begun. We faced two more months of below-zero temperatures, icy pavements, the toil of clearing our driveways, and costly fuel bills. 

My vigil began on Friday evening in the assumed safety of indoors. It was hard to relax. While regularly feeding the wood stove, I peered warily into the night. What snow had remained on the ground glistened in the sharp rays of moonlight. 

Then, from the northwest, the wind suddenly swooped down on us. It should have passed after a half-hour, possibly sooner. 

I checked the weather app. This was not a gust. It was forecast to stay here for 24 hours, along with the freezing temperature! That’s unusual, I thought. If it were to rain, we’d be transformed into that spectral Buffalo scene. 

The temperature continued to drop, the wind to increase. At times, throughout the evening I heard a loud clap. High in the sky. It was not a tree falling, nor thunder either. Could it be an atmospheric conduction of some kind? Then I caught a sound I recognized: the aching crack of a frozen tree as it caved under the wind. Its eerie cry rose in the nearby woods, echoing into the dark. 

I waited for the crash, then was distracted by another sound, an insistent whistling across the walls of my house. Was the wind finding slivers of space to pry open and thrust that cold inside? And then what? I felt the groan of the walls around me as the squall beat at them. I felt I had to move about, as if protecting this indoor space. I moved from room to room, inspecting for cracked windows, thinking how I might seal anything found broken. Another clap exploded somewhere above the house. Had something fallen on the roof? Smashed the car?

Although I knew the forecast warned the temperature would continue dropping for another 24 hours, I repeatedly checked my phone’s weather app—negative 19 degrees Celsius, negative 20, negative 24. Such fierce wind—not even occasional gusts, but a steady whipping—combined with these temperatures was new for me, even after a childhood in snowbound Canadian winters. 

My main worry was a power cut. Not unusual in winter, and common in such high winds. I readied three flashlights, charged my phone. (I also gathered emergency supplies in a knapsack in case I had to flee.) 

I would not sleep soundly because of that ceaseless howling outside, and because I set my alarm every two hours to replenish the wood stove. (I had calculated that it would need 16 good-sized logs, one for every hour until I could venture out to the woodpile.)

Morning light finally arrived. The wind had not eased. The temperature was still minus 24 Celsius. Mercifully the blizzard hadn’t downed any electric lines. 

By 10 a.m. the sun offered shafts of warmth through the window and onto the carpets. The wind continued its menacing shrieking. Not even a municipal vehicle moved along the road, there beyond the Beaverkill whose sluggish flow now carried chunks of ice. 

The forecast announced the storm would ease after six hours.

Finally, I spotted two pickups on the road beyond. Closer to the house, wild turkeys poked at the gravel. It seemed we had turned a corner.

B Nimri Aziz is a Roscoe-area resident.