Halfway down the Danube

The Blizzard of '04

Eight people are dead in Istanbul so far, and maritime passage through the Bosporus has been stopped until further notice. A ship has been reported sunk by gales off the coast of Crete. Much of northern Greece and Bulgaria has shut down.

And in Romania... well, about a third of the roads in Romania are closed right now: in the northeast and east, from the Carpathians down to the Danube Delta. Exactly where I was a couple of hours ago.

It was unpleasant. Maybe I'll go into detail later, when I'm a little less shaken. Short version: heavy snow with gale force winds, what an American forecaster would call "extreme winter storm conditions".

Worse than Tuesday's drive from Pitesti -- much, much worse. Near total whiteout on the road, with multiple skid-offs and accidents. Wind chill below -18 C (0 Fahrenheit). Repeated episodes of slowing down to a few kph, barely over walking speed, because visibility had shrunk to zero -- just howling whiteness in front of the windshield -- with sharp drop-offs on either side of the road, and nothing beyond that but empty, empty countryside and the black wind screaming down from the Carphathians. And that was before the snow started drifting across the road, and the car began sliding in slow, dreamlike curves from one lane to the other and back, giving only the vaguest and most reluctant responses to my increasingly frantic manipulations of brakes and steering wheel.

It was the worst storm I've seen in many years, and maybe the worst I've ever been driving in for long. We seriously considered turning back and spending the night in Galati. Even though we made it through, I still wonder if that wouldn't have been the smart thing to do.

This storm seems to have a calm center, by the way, and Bucharest seems to be at or near it. We drove out of the storm around Buzau (about 100 km northeast of Bucharest) and into a completely different world, with a light sprinkling of flakes falling gently out of a calm sky. About 4-5 cm of snow have fallen so far tonight in Bucharest, but the winds are light and the temperature hasn't gone below -3 Centigrade (28 Fahrenheit) or so.

In a year or two I may look back on this as an adventure. Right now I'm just glad to be home, warm, and in one piece.

Posted by douglas at January 23, 2004 10:55 PM | TrackBack