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Comment by jethkl | Hacker News Reader

From TFA: “Our wood pile remains inaccessible.” They have wood but they cannot reach it to make deliveries to people in the area. Several decades ago, I recall driving along I90 in SD a few days after a large storm, and we saw drifts as tall as the highway underpasses. It was incredible. Driven snow takes on a texture that is different from powder, more like soft concrete. When the snow is sufficiently deep, there is no place to put it even if you are able to shovel or plow it.

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I am sure I don't understand the nuances of this situation but it seems a major failure of foresight and your emergency supplies should be stored so that they are accessible where they are needed if shit hits the fan.

Not sure how they can deliver firewood when the roads are impassible. And in very heavy snowfall -- esp dry powder that you get when the air is, and stays, very cold -- you'll continue to get significant amounts of snow on the roads long after it stops snowing as the wind blows it onto the road.

Additionally, a well-maintained suv with 4wd and snow tires isn't a cheap thing to own and maintain.

And if you get your car stuck somewhere with wind chills dipping to -50F, dying of hypothermia is a possible and/or likely outcome.

You can really tell who has never lived through a serious winter.

You store firewood for heating at your house for emergencies. The solution is a pile, not an SUV.

In the winter the firewood should be stored right next to the house, some of it inside the house. In fact the wood that you intend to burn now should be inside the house otherwise when you put it on the fire it will depress the fire. I have one day of firewood stacked next to the woodburner and several weeks in the vindfang (an unheated porch with doors both sides). The rest is stacked at the back of the house and it would be accessible even if a drift buried the house assuming that we are just averagely fit.

We aren't preppers but it makes no sense to rely on just in time deliveries in midwinter so we buy or otherwise obtain the wood for most of the winter in October or November

Firewood deliveries have been a regular occurrence in past years [0,1]. It seems plausible that these past deliveries established a central place where wood is stored, and it also established a local norm where firewood is distributed. Also, this is the high plains where trees grow near rivers but basically don't grow in outlying areas, with the result that general access to wood is not easy for everyone. So it's also plausible that local conditions have established another local norm where maintaining a 3 month stash of firewood is just not done.

[0] https://www.forestsandrangelands.gov/documents/success/rushm...

[1] https://www.blackhillsfox.com/content/news/Military-supplies...

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