@alwaysamom Only one week off here for public schools. They went to school through 12/22 and went back on 1/2.
They get 1 week off in Feb and another week off in April.
No February week off here anymore either in the vast majority of public schools. Some just get Presidents Day off. Others get a four day weekend…either getting the previous Friday off…or the Tuesday after off.
But yes…a full week off in April.
DS is back home with a boarding pass for a delta flight tomorrow to CHS, but I’m realizing the same thing could happen (they cancel the flight). This is nuts.
Check this out-cars frozen into floodwaters on a street in Revere, MA.
http://www.cnn.com/videos/weather/2018/01/06/frozen-cars-flood-revere-massachusetts-cnni.cnn/video/playlists/winter-weather/
Got out on time at EWR last evening. Thank goodness I had no big issues but heard a lot of awful tales including one young man taking 3 hours to get from lower Manhattan to EWR for a 7:30AM flight, only to miss the check in deadlines by 2 minutes and had to wait till 6PM to get out.
@thumper1 and @doschicos
Thanks! Poor kids. 
Our public schools were off as of noon on the 22nd and will return on Monday, Jan. 8th. A long weekend in February for Family Day and then a week off in March.
@alwaysamom – one week here. Or as long as it takes to fit in Christmas and NY. So it could be a week and a half, but here in our NJ town, and most I know, it went one week and one day. Until our two snow days this week. H, being a HS teacher, got an unexpected extra long weekend. Me, as a Uni prof who didn’t need to go back until after MLK day, sort of mourned the not having the house to myself days, but he’s good company overall. 
Schools have been off here since Dec. 16.
My nephew managed to get out of EWR yesterday morning early. He’s at the Magic tournament with his cousin and his cousin’s teammates.
Frozen pipe this morning!
This is to the toilet that is in our bathroom that is above our unheated garage. Temps were down to about -10 last night, and I had set the faucets to drip to try and avoid pipes are freezing. Well, the faucets are fine, but the toilet is at the very edge of the house and therefore most susceptible.
Here is my plan, but also looking for suggestions.
Since the pipe that is frozen is in the insulated floor of our bathroom and above our unheated garage, I can’t get to it directly. So instead I am using space heaters to heat up our bathroom and the garage. I have one in the bathroom and two in the garage, all 1500 watts apiece. The two in the garage are being fed by two different circuits.
Any other suggestions?
DH just came down and our shower drain is also frozen. Pipes in sink and water and toilet are fine…but it’s NOT draining…and it is also above our garage…unheated.
He says it will be fine. When it thaws.
Our kitchen is above an unheated garage with the sink facing outside and all pipes running along right above the garage opening. That’s where it freezes, waterline goes at about 5-10 degrees and the dishwasher drain goes around 10-15. The main drain never freezes. The only wrong design of the house. I use a hair dryer on low setting blowing close to where it freezes. It thaws it all in less than 30 mins. If you think about it, there isn’t that much water that freezes on a skinny water pipe. I am around when I do that just in case it’s a fire hazard. I am on the west coast at the moment missing out the fun. Luckily, I drained everything before I left.
I feel fortunate that we haven’t had any frozen pipes in our guest bathroom which is not directly above the garage, but the side of the room where the sinks and toilet are abuts the room that’s above the garage. I flushed that toilet this morning and it seemed fine.
If you can get to the pipe I have found that running a hair dryer works, but in my house it usually takes several hours. I turn it on and off every 20 minutes or so to avoid overheating, and it’s a real pain.
I can’t get to the pipe. They are inside a cabinet. I put the dryer near a pipe under the sink that I can see. For a toilet tank it would be the supply line coming out of the wall or the floor. If the pipe is metal, the heat should transport quickly along the pipe reaching the frozen section.
@hebegebe, you can also bail the toilet then pour hot salt water into it. Be prepared to turn the water off in case the pipe has burst.
Hmmm…ill mention the hot salt water to my husband who is doing god knows what to the shower drain.
Same issue as above poster. Everything else drains fine…but this particular drain runs the longest distance…in our garage. Usually the garage temp doesn’t get below freezing but I guess this time, it did!
If you have any way to cut off the water to the frozen pipes, do so before thawing. Our old house in Illinois had some oddly configured pipes behind the outside walls. They would burst while frozen then surprise us when thawed with mini floods. We eventually had to permanently cut off water to a sink in our upstairs bathroom. We even once had a pipe burst that we didn’t know existed - it had fed water to a fridge that the previous owner kept by the back door. It just takes a hairline crack to wreak havoc.
I used to say that we should just keep the plumber on retainer!
In our case…it’s the drain that is frozen…not the incoming water.
DH is working on it…thawing it SLOWLY.
We have NO plumbing that is in outside walls…at all. But this drain runs the length of our three car garage.
And in my case it is the incoming water, so a burst pipe is a possibility. Hopefully the dripping faucet about 10ft away relieved some pressure.
Leaving the house in a couple of hours. Will turn off the water to the house before I go.