When to Change Plans

The Thanksgiving holiday is the day after tomorrow.  We stopped at Whole Foods tonight on our way home from yoga.  It was raining heavily, but the store was packed with people stocking up for the event.  This time of year, on through the next few months, the weather is the major unpredictable and disruptive force that can make us change course, and present challenges to our comfort and even safety.

The news tonight has much about the large storm that has moved across the southwest, midwest, and tonight and tomorrow will be sweeping through the Mid-Atlantic region and up the east coast.  Such a storm, landing right on top of the Thanksgiving holiday, disrupts travel plans, strands people in airports for many hours, forces a multitude of decisions - to go, to stay home, to try to change flights, to leave earlier and drive before the storm hits - and for some, turns a holiday trip into a deadly tragedy.

We control so much in our lives - so much is routine and predictable day after day - that it is sometimes difficult to realize when events have tipped past the point of control and safety, and demand a different response, caution rather than complacency.

I can think of several times when I carried forward with a plan and didn't adjust to new information.  The most terrifying of those was a trip from Goodland, Kansas back to Denver to catch a flight.  There was a winter storm in the works. The first half of the trip was fine, but suddenly, just after passing Limon, Colorado, windblown snow caused a whiteout.  I couldn't see the road at all.  I couldn't see where the shoulder was.  I didn't dare pull over for fear that I would be plowed into by a vehicle, perhaps even a big truck, coming behind.

My only hope was to stay right behind a semi, close enough that I could see its tail lights, and hope that the driver could see where he was going.  I traveled like this for miles, usually going significantly faster than I wanted to.  Occasionally I almost lost track of the lights, and for all I knew the next moment would bring disaster.   Each time I was able to reestablish contact, and eventually the whiteout eased and the rest of the drive was uneventful.

Had I been more cautious, I would have stopped at Limon and waited for the weather to clear.  I might well have missed my flight.  In retrospect, pushing on was not worth the risk, but by the time I realized the danger, it was too late to do anything but put my trust in a random truck driver and hope that he would stay on the road.