Article content

Tuesday night’s storm meant early deadlines at the newspaper, and thus afforded me the rare opportunity to leave work on schedule — 10 p.m. — for what I anticipated would be a longer-than-usual 80-kilometre commute from the Ottawa Citizen/Ottawa Sun building on Baxter Road to my home in Lanark Highlands.

I’ve been doing this commute for more than 23 years and, having shrugged off the offer of an office couch or simply checking into a hotel this night, I figured I was, as always, prepared for whatever blow the Colorado Low had in store.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Dutton: Spending Ottawa's storm night in my car — a cautionary tale from the road Back to video

In fair weather, it’s a 55-minute drive in the Deer Slayer — my 19-year-old Nissan, which wears its rippled bodywork with pride — and, on nights such as this, I anticipated an extra 20 minutes or so.

And so it went. At least until I turned off the final county road onto the second-last township concession.

By that point, the snow coming up over the hood was so thick on the windshield that the wipers stopped. As did the car.