Pastor Greg's run in with the frozen roads & BPC info in case of bad weather

I typically begin my Sunday morning each week at 5:30am. It gives me an opportunity to go over my message one final time & pray for our service at 10am. I’m here to tell you that the roads were bone dry until about 7am when it started to rain. (Didn’t the Tin Man in the Wizard of OZ say that??). The roads quickly turned into a sheet of ice shutting down PGH. The last time the State Police shut down the parkways was for the Blizzard of ‘93! At 7:30am I decided to “Go for it” & Francie & I backed the car down the driveway (Really now, where did I think I was going?). The car started to slide down the driveway on the ice in a matter of seconds. Needless to say I parked the car on the street in front of the house & went back inside to watch the news. All roads were shut down, car accidents were being reported left & right & no one; I mean NO ONE was going anywhere until the temperature was going to rise.

How does the rain freeze? Well, let’s simplify the science… think of the atmosphere as a cake. Meteorologists, analyze several layers of the atmosphere. Typically, the surface layer (or the bottom of the cake) is warm and temperatures get colder as air rises. However, on Sunday, it was the opposite. Sunday, the higher levels of the atmosphere (the middle of the cake) were warm and the surface (the bottom of the cake) was cold. The precipitation starts in the clouds as snow, then it falls through a WARM layer that’s usually 3,000 feet above the surface. As it goes through the warmer air, it changes to rain… but right before the rain hits the surface; it hits a very shallow freezing layer. The droplets hit the ground and they instantly freeze coating your driveway, sidewalk and the roads. (The weather info above was supplied by Erin Kinzle of WTAE Channel 4 & not me)

About 8am the temperature was slowly rising & they predicted the roads would be passable by 10am. At about 8:15am the salt truck drove by our house spreading a layer of salt & in 15 minutes the ice on the road melted. We waited until about 9am to head out to the church taking Freeport Rd from Blawnox to Tarentum. By then the roads were “slushy” but all the cars on the roads were driving very cautiously (so was I). It took us 30 minutes to get to the church & once we arrived I decided to changed the service time to 10:30am to give more time to anyone who was “going to go for it” as well. Thanks so much to all those who attended the service & thank goodness to all those who stayed put because you never know what could happened.

So, during the next 3-4 months we could potentially see more dangerous winter weather conditions on a Sunday morning. Please use your best judgment & common sense when attempting to come to church. Obviously stay put if you’re likely to get into an accident & cause injury or damage to yourself or someone else. Not to mention the financial headache that goes along with stuff like that.

If you decide you can get to church safely please log onto the internet & check our website, my blog, facebook & Twitter for any BPC changes or cancelations. You can also call us to find out what’s up. Below is all the contact info you’ll need. Remember to always be safe out there this winter!!

website; www.bridgepointchurch.cc, phone number 412.596.5599
Pastor Greg on the internet; blog-gregkrowitz.blogspot.com, facebook-Greg Krowitz Sr and Twitter-@gregkrowitz