Question for y'allz snowpeople

[kenny]

Here's a pic from Boston Globe's online blizzard coverage.
At the risk of coming across as an airheaded California beachbum ... Uhm, is this okay?

Could the snow above her collapse and suffocate her?

 

[Garnetgirl]

Yes it could collapse. Such things have happened. But most youngsters play like this. Without having any statistics to back me up, I imagine it’s a rare occurrence.
When I was a kid, many many years ago, no one seems to give it any thought. And it’s lots of fun!

 

[Karl_K]

We did that as a kids, had huge caves dug into snow banks.
As far as being safe yes and no, it really depends on the snow.
But the thing is the kind most likely to collapse is also the kind you can just stand up or pull someone out of.
The bank shown was compressed by the snow plow so it is probably pretty safe, unless another snow plow comes along and buries it with someone inside.

edit: If I had kids I would let them do that.

 

[AGBF]

It doesn't look dangerous to me. I would only be concerned with what is behind them. Is that a road where cars are passing? If so, then it probably would be too close to the street. If the kids' backs are safe (no cars), they are fine.

 

[pearlsngems]

My brother and I made a snow cave when we were kids, too. The snow was very hard.

 

[vintageinjune]

We hallowed out this 10+ foot tall snow drift that partially buried our house when I was a kid , did it with my siblings and dad! Large enough inside we could get all 4 of us in there by the time we were done. The *moment* is starting warming up though, we blocked it off.

 

[missy]

Yeah, I think it is perfectly safe. The snow is hard.

While we are on the topic of childhood and safety just a few thoughts. Meant to be tongue in cheek so please don't skewer me. Just came to my mind reading this thread.


Somehow we survived the 70s without wearing helmets or seatbelts.
We survived no airbags.
We survived moms who might have smoked and drank.
Who took aspirin and blue cheese.
Cribs with lead based paints.
Drinking water from the garden hose.
Riding in the back of a pickup truck.
Eating cupcakes, bread, drinking soda.
Eating rock candy and candy necklaces.
No one could reach us all day as we had no mobile phones
And we rode bikes all day long.
No Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games.
Sports and other competitions had tryouts and not everyone made the team.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.





Don't get me wrong.
The kids are safer today.
I think.

 

[AGBF]

Yeah, I think it is perfectly safe. The snow is hard.

While we are on the topic of childhood and safety just a few thoughts. Meant to be tongue in cheek so please don't skewer me. Just came to my mind reading this thread.


Somehow we survived the 70s without wearing helmets or seatbelts.
We survived no airbags.
We survived moms who might have smoked and drank.
Who took aspirin and blue cheese.
Cribs with lead based paints.
Drinking water from the garden hose.
Riding in the back of a pickup truck.
Eating cupcakes, bread, drinking soda.
Eating rock candy and candy necklaces.
No one could reach us all day as we had no mobile phones
And we rode bikes all day long.
No Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games.
Sports and other competitions had tryouts and not everyone made the team.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.





Don't get me wrong.
The kids are safer today.
I think.

I had no idea some of the things on this list were dangerous! Rock candy?

 

[ItsMainelyYou]

Yeah, it's normal to shallow burrow into compacted snowbanks. There's usually some definite 'engineering' to shore it up so it's igloo compact. They have a parent right there in case it gets hairy.

 

[missy]

I had no idea some of the things on this list were dangerous! Rock candy?

Well LOL I am a daughter of a retired dentist but in the 60s and 70s we still got to eat rock candy and all that sugary candy. I loved it but still. It isn't good for us let alone children. So yeah I would cross that off the list if I had kids. But I guess it depends on one's definition of dangerous.

 

[MrsBlue]

Kids are pretty much a constant hazard. That's why you have to check on them if they've been too quiet for a while and yank them out of whatever trouble they've gotten themselves into. I'm sure there's a watchful caretaker nearby.

 

[Arcadian]

As long as they're not anywhere near the street its fine. Some years ago kids were playing in a snowbank by the street and were killed by the snow plow (he did not see them).

I would think most parents tell their kids not to do that but some will just because its snow and looks like fun.

 

[Calliecake]

Most kids who grew up with snow loved making snow caves. You needed to have the good packing snow to make them. It was a lot of fun.

 

[Ibrakeforpossums]

Lived in the upper Midwest all my life, never heard of any fatalities from snow dens, even from the UP where it snows higher than the front door.
Snow certainly does kill people out west, skiers who fall into a tree hole, avalanches.

 

[Karl_K]

The only one fatality I can recall in my area is some older kids intentionally rode a snowmobile over a snow cave with some younger kids in it and it collapsed and the snowmobile came down on them killing one of the kids and hurting the other.

I did hear about someone getting inured by a snowplow hitting a snowbank with some one in the snowbank but that was not local to me.

 

[Ibrakeforpossums]

Malicious idiots, not the snow cave.
Snowmobilers and their clubs, riding from bar to bar. I guess if you're going to drive drunk . . .

 

[rainydaze]

Yes, it could.

This was one of my favorite things to do after my dad made the perfect snowbank from snowblowing out our driveway. He made sure I knew a few key things: do not make it near the street bc a plow won't see me, make sure the top is not too heavy and the sides not too thin, and make sure someone is either with you or aware you are playing in one.

I have a great memory from my childhood of a particularly awesome snow storm. My dad was able to pile snow crazy-high. We made a curved sledding 'track' up top, with a cave (pretty shallow i'm sure) below. It was the BEST!

 

[Karl_K]

What we would also do is make snow blocks and stack them up to form walls then pour water over them to make ice until we had 4 foot or higher ice walls then we would use wood and a tarp for a roof.
We would sleep overnight in it in sleeping bags.
We once had 5 kids in one overnight.
You have to be careful to keep a bit of airflow going and not make it to airtight otherwise its perfectly safe.

 

[kenny]

What we would also do is make snow blocks and stack them up to form walls then pour water over them to make ice until we had 4 foot or higher ice walls then we would use wood and a tarp for a roof.
We would sleep overnight in it in sleeping bags.
We once had 5 kids in one overnight.
You have to be careful to keep a bit of airflow going and not make it to airtight otherwise its perfectly safe.

Did you compress the blocks first?
If so, how and how did you cut them?

 

[Karl_K]

Did you compress the blocks first?
If so, how and how did you cut them?

We packed the snow into wood block molds
Later on we had plastic ones to cut blocks out of compressed piles of snow..
The wood ones we packed the snow into then lifted the molds where the plastic ones were more like cookie cutters.

 

[kenny]

Whoa!
How cool is that?

 

[Ibrakeforpossums]

Yes, while the rest of us were staring blankly and soiling ourselves, Karl was in Construction Management.

 

[Voodoo Child]

We packed the snow into wood block molds
Later on we had plastic ones to cut blocks out of compressed piles of snow..
The wood ones we packed the snow into then lifted the molds where the plastic ones were more like cookie cutters.

I had that exact same mold as a kid in the early 80s! A group of us kids would build an igloo and then have snowball “wars” with other kids from the neighborhood who had also built snow forts.

 

[kenny]

This seems so cool (especially for kids) that I had to search up some examples ... and found this.

Now I want to have some kids to do this with.

 

[Karl_K]

This seems so cool (especially for kids) that I had to search up some examples ... and found this.

Now I want to have some kids to do this with.

That design is not safe as there are no provision for airflow and co2 can build up and suffocate people.
Even as a kid I knew that!

 

[kenny]

That design is not safe as there are no provision for airflow and co2 can build up and suffocate people.
Even as a kid I knew that!

EEK!

Thanks for the info.

 

[monarch64]

SNOW FORT! I, too, remember playing in snow banks after dad plowed the driveway.

We are about to get ice and snow and it’s making me anxious. Public school has already announced e-learning for Thursday and Friday this week. I live in a weird place where we technically can get a lot of snow but usually don’t, so we don’t allocate a lot of money towards snow removal and a lot of us are terrible at driving in it. (Not me, of course, I am perfect.)

 

[autumngems]

I used to live in Ohio so we had big snow storms all the time and we used to dig tunnels through our back yard, we had so much fun then. Some of you may remember the blizzard of 78. That was a good one