Tagged: Superstorm Sandy

It's not easy to get around the back roads of West Virginia right now. Our four-wheel drive couldn't make it up the hill to David Arnold's place near Fayetteville, so he came down to get us in his Chevy Tahoe.

We spin through the snow, through archways made of broken tree branches. The drive is worth the effort; Arnold runs a whitewater rafting business, and he lives right on the edge of the New River gorge.

From his back porch, we can look 900 feet down to the river or 3,000 feet straight across, through falling snow to the other side. It's just gorgeous.

The center of Superstorm Sandy passed less than 25 miles from Philadelphia. In most cases that would mean that the city of brotherly love would have been whipped with the strongest of winds from the weather system.

But Philly, the country's fifth-largest city, emerged today fairly unscathed.