MGRP+narrative

Dear Reader

Chris Peabody Mrs. Dabrush Section 3 Language and Literacy


 * Narrative Assessment for MGRP**

Imagine that one day you wake up to 7 feet of snow in your front lawn, so high you can’t even see your own car. In Massachusetts and Parts of Rhode Island were buried by the largest snow fall of the century that lasted for 36 hours and devastated most of the Cape Cod coast line. There was so much snow that it covered highways and buried houses. People were so unprepared for this that most people were stopped in the middle of the highway or their own driveway. At this point all of the stores were emptied due to the worried people of the state. This was known as the Blizzard of 78‘ This storm hit the Eastern and Central parts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island covering everything in sight. During this time people thought that there was nothing you could do about it because they were trapped inside your house, but some people used it as a chance to get away and enjoy the snow. For instance kids and teens skied and sledded down hills for fun. All though times were bad people found ways to make it fun. Here is a story of a man who experienced this rare occurrence.

One day as I woke to my alarm and my wife said to me, “Don’t worry about it honey, there is 5 feet of snow in our front yard you aren’t going any where even if you tried.” I was so astonished that I pulled off the covers and walked to the nearest window and pulled the shades up to see my surprised face in the reflection of the mirror. As I got dressed I thought of ways that I could get to work (because all news reporters must make it to headquarters for the real story of how it happened). When I was finished I decided to walk so I put on my boots and my wife gave me a bagel with cream cheese and kissed her goodbye and left into the perilous storm. As I began to walk I saw many people struggling to get their cars out of the snow hoping that it would run. When I got inside headquarters I found that most people weren’t there because of the struggle to get to work. But thankfully I was among some of the meteorologists and my boss who nothing to complain about either. “Storm of the century ain’t it, Here, you go to warm yourself up”, As he chuckled as he handed me a hot cup of coffee. Within minutes the team found out that it was a rare blizzard that doesn’t happen very often. They continued their research as I chugged down the coffee. That evening my boss came into my office and said, “John, we are going to leave in 20 minutes to go to the park and shoot a live stream of the storm and interview some people on how their morning went, OK”, “Sure, I’ll get ready to leave in sec, just let me organize these files” I replied. We then left and it was harder than I thought, just trying to get through a block took 10 minutes. That afternoon I came home to a glazed ham dinner with mashed potatoes and warm hot chocolate. I then watched some TV and fell to sleep on the couch. The next morning I woke up to even more snow. “Today is going to be a long, long day”, I muttered to myself. I got up the same way; looked out the window and saw even more snow. “This is like Mt. Everest in the middle of Massachusetts. Today was a Saturday thank goodness so I asked Sara if she wanted to go get something to eat and stop by the park and look at the endless storm of snow that continued to cover the greenery. On our way home I reminded Sara of the good times that we had in Puerto Rico and how hot and nice it was outside That evening we couldn’t think of anything to do but hang around the house and do the chores but when we finished them we just stared at each other and I said, “Do you want to watch a movie speaking that there is nothing else to do but sit around and do nothing”. “Yes, Honey what would you like to watch” She replied. After the movie she felt like taking a nap so she went to our bedroom and started to sleep. Since I wasn’t as tired as she was I decided to write my mother in Florida, a letter describing our first day in the Blizzard.

Letter to My Mother Irene...

Dear Mom,

It’s been a rough couple of days with all the snow and wind, i’ve been home a lot of the time just trying to stay warm. Yesterday, I went to work and I passed by the park I could see the park benches, and the trees were so low that it looked like they were huge bushes. When I got to work that day it felt like the zombie apocalypse because I was the only one there including three others which makes us “the survivors”. That evening my boss let me out early to beat the wave of snow. On my way I stopped by Dunkin Donuts to grab a coffee because the cold was getting to me. When I got home I sat down in front of my television to turn on the news and found that we were in a rare snow storm that happens very rarely. This is what the man on the television said, “This bizarre storm happens only when the moon is full and is closer to earth causing the tides to uplift a couple feet above its standard levels.” I was a little confused but I got that the snow wasn’t going to stop anytime sooner. I also found out that this storm broke records for highest level of snow and caused most damage. The newscasters named this The Blizzard of 1978.

The next morning, I went on a walk with Sara to look at how much snow has buried the State of Massachusetts. We first walked by a hill where we found kids sledding and older teens skiing on the other side of the hill. It reminded me of you because I saw a family with kids who were complaining about the cold and you despise the cold and can’t stand either. Only if you were here so you can see all of the snow outside.

So how is Dad doing? Did he watch the hockey game that was today? Well any way I hope you stay warm and i’ll get back to you soon when this perilous storm stops and melts away... I hope so

Love you always,

John

After I finished my letter, Sara slowly got up and I showed her the letter and she started to laugh because how how funny she thought it was my mother hates the cold here and how she would react if she were here at the moment. After she read the letter we decided to start diner but when we started the stove it didn’t turn on. We continued to attempt to turn on the stove it wouldn’t turn because there was no electricity and then the lights blinked and then died. We then received a call from our neighbors who kindly invited us over to their house which still had power and their stove was still working too. They offered us tea and blankets but we kindly refused and sat down for a few hours talking about the storm. We had a few cans of soda and we left and said thank you to our neighbors As I walked back to my front door I realized that my car was fully submerged in snow. When I walked inside I saw Sara searching in the cabinets to find only bread and scones, so we decided to have macaroni for the night. When the macaroni was done we sat down at the table and I said, “What a storm huh” “Yeah I know I have never seen anything like it, and imagine when it all melts and the rivers will over flow and probably cause even more damage.” After dinner we watched The Perfect Storm which was about sailors who were trapped in a storm at sea which was kind of Ironic because we were trapped in our house in the middle of a snow storm. When the movie was over we turned on the news and watched it until about 9:00 pm. When we both found out that the snow was going to stop. In the morning we jumped up and shouted because we were glad to actually get out of the house and get some exercise. We then went to bed because for once we were tired of seeing the some walls for the past day and a half. We then went to bed fairly easy knowing that the storm would be over in a matter of hours. The morning I woke up to the call from my boss saying that I needed to come in and help him with a task. As I got up and out of bed I quickly ran to the window and saw that the snow was still collecting. I put on my boots and my jacket and walked out the door leaving a letter to Sara saying that I was called in to work today. Since I didn’t have any breakfast I stopped by Dunkin Donuts once more and continued on walking to headquarters. When I got there my boss walked rather quickly say, “This storm is phenomenal, it has broken all time records come and see!”. I followed him inside. When I went inside everybody was there including the manager of the company who was interested in the storm as well. He concluded that the Blizzard of 1978 caused 500 million dollars in damage in the Cape Cod and Boston area and more damage in Rhode Island are in Millions of dollars in damage as well. After all of this chaos I’ve realized that being a news reporter isn’t have bad speaking that you are the second person to know about the the storms and also the person that gets to experience the storm while it is happening.

The result of this catastrophic and rather bizarre storm it caused a total of 500 million dollars in damage and much more damage in Rhode Island. The storm impacted much of the coast line crashing against the sea walls and obliterating houses until they were leveled to the sand. The snow piled up in downtown Boston creating a major problem during the rush hour. Many people during this storm were trapped and some died in an attempt to survive. Thanks to the of the National Guard and the fire department, many people avoided death and live today to tell the story of how they survived the Blizzard of 78’