Louise O'Brien has been through some big snowstorms since moving to Canton in 1973. But when she peered out her living room window Monday, she saw something she had never seen and did not expect. • "They were like a chain gang," she said. "They just kept going around and around." • They were her neighbors in the 600 block of S. Curley St., and more than a dozen of them were digging out the road, one shovelful at a time.
The neighbors - renters and owners, newcomers and old-timers - found common purpose amid the back-to-back whiteouts that dumped a record 45 inches of snow in five days. Relative strangers when the week began, many were on a first-name basis as it ended.
All over Baltimore, the two storms turned rowhouse streets like Curley into impassable canyons. With city crews overstretched, residents knew they were largely on their own.
On Curley Street, the cooperative spirit flagged at times. On the other hand, people's faith in city government was revived more than once. And as life edged back to normal, talk turned to cementing their newfound bonds over beers. Maybe, some said, it was time to start planning a big block party - for July.
Here's what the week was like on one Baltimore block:
Monday: A brigade forms for the big dig-outRay Charlton was the mastermind. A fit and mild-mannered man of 62, he works in research and development for a cooling tower company. He knew the snow-clearing on Curley would require teamwork. There was just too much snow in too tight a space for individuals to go it alone.
The first step, he concluded, would be to build piles next to each car on one side of the narrow street, leaving enough room for cars to pull onto the street and back into the spot later. Cars on the opposite side would be dug out entirely.
But with 2 feet of snow on the road, Curley Street itself would have to be cleared for anyone to go anywhere. And no one expected to feel the soothing rumble of a city plow any time soon, if ever.
So shoveling would have to do it. But where to put all that snow? A group of men in the next block had pushed the bounds of creativity by prying off a manhole cover and stuffing snow down the hole. But it filled up in barely a minute.
Charlton didn't think that wise in any case. To him, the best spot was the corner of Curley and Fleet streets, where parking was illegal. So, some snow would go in piles beside cars, the rest on two mounds at the corner.
The shoveling brigade began its work Monday morning and grew, one by one, to more than a dozen helpers. The work paused only at lunchtime when Charlton's wife, Linda, brought out sausage and pork tenderloin subs smothered in melted mozzarella cheese. Snowdrifts provided a handy spot to stash cold beers.
The day before, Charlton had discussed snow removal plans with a couple of neighbors, including Lincoln Wooten, who bought on the block four months ago with his girlfriend. Wooten was among the first to hit the street Monday morning, pleased to be getting to know people he'd only waved to before.
Another neighbor, John Plona, 53, donned camouflage pants and a black headband. Many of his neighbors were strangers to him even though he's lived on the block since 1978. He blamed the frequent overtime shifts he works at Trigen Energy's steam plants.
But there has also been turnover on the street. Higher-income professionals have moved into this once solidly blue-collar area in recent years. More recently, Charlton said, some homeowners, pinched by the recession, have rented out their homes.
As the shovelers inched up Curley, Plona felt a growing sense of camaraderie, even if he did keep referring to Charlton as "Frank" instead of Ray. "It's a good thing," Plona said. "You get to meet your neighbors when you have a common threat."
He giddily shrugged off his wife Anna's concerns about his exertion: "My wife said, 'John, don't shovel too much. Healthy people are getting heart attacks.' I said, 'You don't have to worry. I ain't healthy.' "
The more progress the group made toward midblock, the farther each person had to walk to the corner with a snow-filled shovel.
A bartender on the block named Brendan Ryan came up with a solution: trash cans. Soon a division of labor took hold. While some shoveled snow, others hauled away snow-filled cans.
"It's a good idea until you get it here," said 42-year-old Shawn Fellin, struggling to dump a can on the slope of a mound now reaching 6 feet high.
Rob Fannon, on bucket detail with Fellin, told the others how his wife, Angie, has been battling cabin fever since giving birth to their son Jack three months ago. She'd been outside earlier, and now he jokingly suggested "tagging her out" to relieve him from snow duty. Maybe he could watch the baby.
The block's joint effort impressed Brianna Creed, a 30-year-old teacher. She compared it to a report she got from a friend on Cold Spring Lane. "He said he and his roommate were the only ones out shoveling," she said. "Nobody came out to help them."
But at a certain point, Charlton said, some on Curley questioned digging out cars of those who had not come outside. The logic boiled down to this: Maybe we should help those who are willing to help.
As Charlton recalled, he shot down the argument on two levels. One, he said, "if they're not coming out and participating, maybe they're not healthy or a woman by themselves." Second, he appealed to self-interest. By freeing up all the cars, he pointed out, there will be more parking spaces for everyone.
The juggernaut kept rolling, liberating cars and pavement alike. "I've never seen it cleaned down to the asphalt," Plona said. After past snowstorms, "we made it to where it was barely passable. This time we made it like a mission." He had no explanation for the thoroughness other than the sheer amount of snow.
Around 6:30, the team finished clearing the block. The sun was setting, temperatures were dropping. And the forecast for the next night's snowfall had just risen from 10 inches to as much as 18 inches. Hearing that, someone suggested everyone drink more beer.
Tuesday: Calm between the storms; supply runAs a second major snowstorm galloped toward Baltimore, some Curley Street residents used Tuesday to stock up.
Lincoln Wooten, 39, and a handful of neighbors even went to work. For him that meant driving to Landover, where he works for a subsidiary of the University of Southern California.
Linda Charlton, Ray's wife, had a second straight day off from her job at the Dundalk Marine Terminal. She went to Safeway for ground beef and other chili fixings.
John Giese, a Carroll County social studies teacher who was off the entire week, drove to Home Depot on U.S. 40 to buy two new snow shovels. His household's previous shovel was done in by Monday's dig-out.
And Louise O'Brien, 80, nervously watched the gray sky as she waited for her 78-year-old husband, Frank, to return from Maryland General Hospital. On Monday he had gone to work at the Maryland comptroller's office against her judgment. After getting off the light rail on Howard Street, he fell and dislocated his right shoulder, requiring a night at the hospital.
The O'Briens' daughter and son-in-law finally got him back home around 6 p.m., not long before the flakes really began falling again. At least Curley Street was clear when they pulled up in their van.
Wednesday: 2nd wallop prompts a retreatBy early Wednesday morning, the blacktop in the 600 block of S. Curley was coated in white again. So were the cars. The wind was blowing so hard that street signs were shaking back and forth.
The second major snowstorm in five days was under way, and residents had no choice but to yield. Charlton made a game effort early in the morning to sweep off steps and sidewalks, but nature soon undid his work.
Louise O'Brien saw him when she glanced out the window. "I'm saying to myself, 'Ray, just give up already. Just give it up and let it go 'til it stops.' "
He did give up, and took a moment to appreciate the beauty of it all. "It's a winter wonderland here," he said.
That morning also brought a big surprise. Those two mountains of snow at the corner of Fleet and Curley were gone. In the wee hours, a city crew had loaded all the snow onto a truck and hauled it away.
Charlton was glad. He and his neighbors would need somewhere to put the new snow.
Thursday: Digging out again, a helping handBy the time the second storm ended, it had dropped about 20 fresh inches of snow on the city. Charlton went outside at 5:30 a.m. to shovel the sidewalk and steps at a half-dozen houses. He made sure the O'Briens' steps were clear of snow and ice.
Curley Street itself looked surprisingly good. It was covered in a mere 4 inches of packed, car-friendly snow. "A plow came down here," Charlton explained. "Really helped out." Assuming that was a city plow, it was the second time in as many days that the block got a helping hand from crews.
And Monday's snow-clearing effort meant their street had been bare to begin with. Nearby roads - Potomac Street, Decker Avenue and others where residents showed less get-out-and-shovel - remained mired in deep snow that few cars could navigate.
Even so, Charlton would not have minded seeing another large contingent of neighbors out clearing cars on Curley. Instead, a few people drifted out mostly to clear around their own cars.
"I think everyone is kind of defeated," ventured 25-year-old Matt Brevet, who was shoveling around his Mazda. "We did all that work and, uh. ..."
But in the next breath, Brevet pointed to the street where he spent a good part of Monday engaged in communal shoveling.
"It's a lot better than it would have been if we hadn't done that," he said.
Linda Charlton thinks the benefits will long outlast the lingering snow.
"Now we're on a first-name basis," she said. "I think we'll have relationships now, we'll get together in the summer. It'll be nice."
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