Nothing brings a community together like a natural disaster. The Silver Thaw of 2012 produced plenty of evidence to back up the claim. Neighbors helping neighbors, shoveling or plowing snow out of driveways, cleaning up downed tree limbs and branches, sharing a warm meal and fellowship, providing a clean place to take a shower, wash clothes or cook a hot meal — simple human gestures that brought us together and helped make coping with the storm and its aftermath that much easier for a lot of folks.

To be sure, each of us endured one personal hardship or another during the Silver Thaw of 2012. All of us, however, lost power at some point in time during the worst of the storm. But we endured as best we could, given the particulars of our own situations, in hopes our Public Utility District crews would work miracles to get power restored as quickly as possible. From what we can tell, those PUD crews came pretty darn close to doing just that. At this writing, most Klickitat County residents again have power and are going about their business as usual. Thanks to city, county and state road crews, our main roadways have been cleared of snow and storm debris, and are again passable, so that we can now travel about the area safely by vehicle.