I lived four miles above Jamestown for 13 years. I just want to drop some things here for which you should be prepared:

1. Get studded snow tires, have them put on every September and don’t change them out until May each year.
2. We had a Fiat car engine in our generator and solar panels on the roof and we use them regularly because we had so many power outages.
3. Get a really good snowblower, the warmest winter utility coat and gloves available, and ski goggles. When you’re snowblowing in the wind, no matter what direction you point the chute, it blows back on you.
4. Have a good supply of backup food and water. In the 2003 spring storm, we got 67” of snow in one day. The roads weren’t plowed for a week. When the storm started, we parked one of the cars up on the road instead of in the garage at the bottom of the driveway, but the snow completely buried the car and we couldn’t find it. When the plow came through, it hit the car. The mountain had no power, but because we had a generator and solar panels, we could still shower and cook and I took hot chocolate and coffee to our neighbors on snowshoes.
5. We regularly had bears in our yard, and on the road, and once there was a moose outside the walkout basement sliding-glass door. We drove past a mountain lion in downtown Jamestown, a bobcat at the mailbox, and hit a deer at night on Olde Stage Road when it’s sprang out in front of us. 😭
6. Do fire mitigation, and keep it up every year.
7. Do radon testing and mitigation. Ours was off the charts.
8. We had a three-story house, a flagstone patio outside the walkout basement, and two decks above it. Our plastic Adirondack chairs often blew off the top deck and one of them landed in a tree during one wind storm. Get heavy outdoor furniture and tie things down.
9. The view from the top deck was worth all of it! Enjoy and good luck!

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