Saturday, January 15, 2011

Snowed In by an Uncaring Town-Time to Act?

Where my mother in law and Bil live, has been hard hit by snow this winter.  They got a foot earlier in the week, 18 inches in the day-after-Christmas storm (the one where we left to go home just as the first flakes started to swirl around) and I think there was a 13 inch storm thrown in there somewhere inbetween.  In other words, there is a lot of snow on the ground.

The thing I worry about is them losing power.  It happens enough in their area that I've thought about getting them a small generator (although I'm not sure Bil could ever learn to run it.)  Before we left that morning after Christmas (knowing we had to run out of there so we could go back to work, 150 miles away, the next morning), we made sure Mom's cell phone was charged.  Her medical alarm device, which she refuses to wear, has a battery and we would be called if it runs low. (that has already happened twice.) 

The company that cuts her lawn in the summer will tend her walk and her driveway (for a price, of course).  Her road is another story.  Her house is almost 40 years old and so is the little cul de sac that she lives on.  It is on an incline and mil is right at the bottom.  The condition of this road is not good.  Water comes to the bottom, right in front of her driveway, and freezes into what becomes a pond almost suitable for ice skating. Certainly not suitable for an 83 year old woman and her developmentally disabled son to drive on, so she tries not to go out too much. How the town of Carmel (yes, I am naming you, for shame) lets this go on year after year despite her entreaties....well, they are nice to her on the phone and then nothing much happens.

Guess it's not in their budget.

If she lived a mile away, over the county boarder into Westchester County and the town of Yorktown, I suspect things would be quite different. Both sides of this border are inhabited by what were rural villages when mil moved up there in the 60's but are now NYC bedroom communities - pricey ones, at that.  But Westchester and Putnam Counties are quite different, apparently, in how they want to spend their money.

The least they could do, there in Putnam, is pay attention to the plight of....shall I say it? a widow with a developmentally disabled son.  So, if mil wants, I will get involved.

If she does, wish me luck.

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