Bill Speer

Take a deep breath. You survived Winter Armageddon 2026.

For several days you survived being cooped up in the house together with your spouse. Even better, the two of you still are talking.

The pipes didn’t freeze, the electricity remained on and because of your diligence in emergency planning, you had three cases of toilet paper, four gallons of milk, two cases of water and all the eggs in the world to see you through this past week.

I applaud you.

I bet you even had candles pulled out of the drawer just in case, as well as put new batteries in every flashlight in the house.

You, or your spouse, managed to keep the driveway and sidewalk passable despite wind chill conditions that rivaled those at the North Pole.

And in the end you could puff out your chest just a bit and say, “Yeah, not bad – I survived that just fine!”

And you did.

You survived more snow, more drifting and more frigid wind chills.

You survived winds with gusts so strong they sounded like a freight train running through your backyard.

You braved single digit temperatures which at times dipped below zero. Most of the days wind chills made temperatures feel more like in the minus double digit numbers.

A popular meme circulating last week was if you were a procrastinator and waiting to tackle a project when hell freezes over, well you had better get to work on it!

I mean think about it – how many times have your experienced such winter conditions that it kept many motorists off the roads for days on end.

And just think, 50 years from now our children and grandchildren will remember surviving the Great Snowstorm of 2026. They will tell tales of “back in the day” when they missed so much school one winter they had to attend class in the summer all the way to the Fourth of July!

I doubt it was coincidence that just as motorists ventured out on the still snow-covered highways from the storm, an international news story said that in 2025 the world moved four seconds closer to an apocalypse, with only 85 seconds left on the world’s Doomsday

Clock. This metaphorical clock is used by atomic scientists to grade stability across the globe, and the newest countdown is closer to a catastrophe than ever before.

But seriously, there were some awesome opportunities that the storm created for readers as well. Many people’s lives naturally slowed down during this time, and they could read a good book or tackle a project that was waiting for the proper attention and time.

Puzzles and games were played around tables, and snow forts and snowmen were constructed outside.

If you could avoid news from elsewhere in the world, Northeast Michigan seemed rather pretty and peaceful, kind of like a Currier and Ives print.

And we owe a lot of unsung heroes our thanks. Can you imagine being one of the road crew workers who worked non-stop through this timeframe clearing roads, knocking down drifts and spreading salt?

Also deserving recognition today are the emergency squad members on call as well as police and firefighters across the region. Doctors and hospital staff workers also should be given thanks.

And the list goes on.

When I moved to Ohio from Michigan I was told there was no need for a snowblower, so I sold mine.

After this past week I might be rethinking that decision.

Then again, how soon will we face another Winter Armageddon!

Bill Speer is a former publisher/editor of The Alpena News. He can be reached at bspeer@thealpenanews.com