Once a year life is like this

By Alex P. Vidal

“It’ll work, if God, wind, leads, ice, snow, and all the hells of this damned frozen land are willing.”—Matthew Henson

ALTHOUGH “we were caught prepared” (not “unprepared” as we usually hear in normal conversations) when a monster snowstorm slammed the East Coast early morning January 26 (when the 2026 Dinagyang Festival fever was still at fever-pitched in Iloilo City) bringing as high as 17 inches of snow in the neighborhood, we didn’t expect to be “defeated” by the abnormal weather condition.

“Defeated” means the storm did not only interrupt our normal lives like work schedules and appointments, among other regular activities and tasks, it also endangered our lives.

In fact, eight New Yorkers were reported killed mostly in Queens amid below freezing temperatures.

The amount of snow that fell from the sky was scary as it immobilized the boroughs and paralyzed a city “that never sleeps,” stranding commuters, cancelling flights, and closing airports, stopping the flow of supplies, and disrupting emergency and medical services.

The weight of snow caused roofs to collapse and knocked down trees and power lines.

Thank God this kind of life in America happens only once a year.

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Major parts of the East Coast were still freezing literally, two days after the brutal winter storm or as of this writing.

In fact, as cleanup continued across New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, forecasters were already tracking another potential winter storm for the weekend.

The National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center says confidence has increased that parts of the immediate East Coast could see impactful snow and wind, though the exact placement of the heaviest impacts is still being refined.

If the storm tracks close enough to the coast, it could also produce strong, gusty winds, especially along coastal areas.

If we thought the worst part of the winter was digging out from a foot of snow, New York has some bad news for us, warned Laura Ratliff of Timeout, who emphasized that the storm may be gone, but a prolonged stretch of dangerous cold is settling in—and it’s going to linger.

“Forecasters say we’re about to enter one of the coldest periods of the season, with wind chills dropping as low as -20 degrees in the mornings and daytime temperatures struggling to climb out of the teens,” Ratliff reported.

The National Weather Service has issued Cold Weather Advisories for parts of the Tri-State area, warning that frostbite and hypothermia can set in quickly with prolonged exposure.

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When Meta (formerly Facebook) was launched in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, along with fellow Harvard College students Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, and Eduardo Saverin, we were told its mission was to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together; to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what’s going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them.

Today, many users have been traumatized and terrorized mentally and emotionally months or years after maintaining a “friendship” with strangers who only bilked them with cash and kind, played with their emotions by offering fake love, sexually harassed and even assaulted them, destroyed their reputations, envied their gains, success and titles, spied on them, and gossiped about them.

All of a sudden people we knew only for the first time in the social media were saying bizarre stories about us.

Let’s beware of wolves masquerading as social media “friends.” No matter how difficult it is to deal with them, let’s continue to promote and embrace love in whatever means with no ifs and buts.

This is the only way to maintain a peace of mind while we are part of the social media.

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LET’S GO NONTOXIC. Let’s request a nontoxic environment in our child’s school. Cleaning products, lawn care, teaching supplies and paint can all be switched for more environmentally friendly versions.

LET’S THROW THE LICE. Head lice are becoming resistant to chemical shampoos designed to kill them. In addition, if we use them we’re flushing insecticides down our drain. Let’s make a conditioning rinse with our usual conditioner, vinegar, and tea tree oil, then comb through thoroughly once a week until the lice are gone.

HAND WASH HEROES. It has been estimated that four percent of domestic waste consists of used disposable diapers. One of the best choices we can make to reduce landfill and help the environment is to use washable diapers instead.

LET’S GET ARTY. Let’s encourage our children’s school to recycle paper they use in the art room. For every ton of paper we reuse, 17 trees are spared.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor-in-chief of two leading daily newspapers in Iloilo, Philippines.—Ed)