Frozen

HALLIE EPHRON: The front of my house is draped with icicles. One over the backdoor is as long as my arm and looks lethal.

But our ice is nothing compared to what the news feeds are reporting about brutal cold and ice sweeping the rest of the country. As I write this, 2.5 million are without power, most of them (including our own Deborah Crombie) in Texas. The multi-vehicle pile-ups that have resulted are horrifying.

Driving in ice is a very bad idea, but the problem is it's often virtually invisible. I remember a cold, drizzly morning and I was driving my yellow Ford Escort station wagon to work. I turned onto the side street that led to the facility’s parking lot, and realized that the car in front of me was sliding. Sideways. In slow motion.

Seconds later my car was doing the same.

I knew what it was: black ice. STEER INTO IT. DO NOT BRAKE. I remembered the advice I’d seen about what to do when your car starts to slide on an ice slick. SO counter-intuitive.

The car in front of me crashed into a tree and my car was taking the exact same trajectory. All I could do was brace for impact. In the silence that followed I stared into my rearview mirror, terrified that a car would appear behind me and slide, sandwiching my car. But none appeared.

Fortunately no one was hurt. I could just get out, walk the rest of the way to my office, and call AAA for a tow and Avis for a car to drive home. The poor people in that icy pileup of 130 vehicles near Fort Worth last week weren't as lucky.

How’s it where you are? Have you had a calamitous encounter with ice or are you somewhere basking and thankful not to be among the frozen?