DALLAS — A young woman sporting a red bandana and sunglasses, and accompanied by a German shepherd pulls her open-cab Jeep into a gas station in rural Mexico.
The wind swirls desert sand all around and a young boy shouts something to her as he runs across the road. She asks the old man who has been fueling her Jeep what the boy said.
“He says there’s a storm coming,” the man said.
The young woman, Sarah Connor, replies, “I know.”
Then she drives on into the distant mountains to prepare for the coming robot apocalypse. She’s determined, capable, resolved.
That’s the last scene of the 1984 sci-fi classic movie "The Terminator."
This week people in Dallas, Texas, have also been warned about a storm.
It was not a robot apocalypse (though that may also be on the way), but instead a significant weather event.
How folks in Dallas react to severe winter weather is decidedly different from people in Dubois or elsewhere in Wyoming.
Winter Is Coming In A Big Way
Cowboy State Daily asked some people who have experienced storm prep in both Dallas and Dubois — and other places in Wyoming such as Lander and Gillette — what constitutes a winter emergency.
“In Wyoming, people are more perpetually prepared,” said Diana Enzi of Gillette. “We know winter is tough.”
Enzi traveled to nearly every corner of Wyoming, in all kinds of weather, working with her husband, the late U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi.
She has also experienced storms and the preparation for those storms in Dallas while visiting family.
Friday, the National Weather Service told Dallas-Ft. Worth area residents they could expect up to 4 inches of snow and up to a half an inch of ice accumulation in the next few days.
“The strong winds and weight of ice and snow on tree limbs may down power lines and could cause sporadic power outages,” the warning says. “Travel could be nearly impossible.”
The agency also issued an extreme cold warning, advising the people of Dallas to take measures to prevent hypothermia and frostbite.
“Be careful out there,” the Dallas Observer told its readers.
It referred to the upcoming weather event as the “Dallaska-Icegeddon 2026” in an article that informed its readers about the open or closed status of area grocery stores, bars and restaurants.
“Know this: if Waffle House is closed, things are bad,” the Friday story says.
Wyomingites Conditioned To Cold
That same forecast for 4 inches of snow with some ice wouldn’t be cause for alert — let alone any kind of -geddon — in the Cowboy State.
People in Wyoming are more used to rough winter weather than people in Dallas, Enzi said.
“If we stopped going (because of bad weather), we would have to stop all the time,” she said.
Lander resident and Cowboy State Daily columnist Bill Sniffin has lived in Wyoming for more than 50 years and frequently travels to the Dallas area to visit family.
“Four inches of snow doesn’t even make a subhead in Wyoming,” he said. “In Lander, we average 116 inches snow (each winter). When we get a warning, it could be a foot or 18 inches.
"People do go to the store and hunker down, but everyone has four-wheel drives. It’s kind of a ho-hum deal.”
But Sniffin said people in Wyoming do take winter weather warnings seriously, they just know how to handle them.
For instance, not many Fremont County residents tempt fate in places like South Pass or Togwotee Pass or Beaver Rim during bad weather.
He said for the people of Wyoming, winter weather preparation is standard operating procedure.
“Wyoming people are already stocked up. Their cars are full of gas. They have full pantries,” Sniffin said. “I don’t see the same rush to the store that you see in Dallas.”
Easier To Prepare When It’s Expected
Dallas-Ft. Worth news was dominated Friday about possible future flight cancellations, store and school closings and scheduled events now not taking place.
Former Dubois resident and Cowboy State Daily contributor Coy Knobel lives in a Dallas suburb.
“It’s about what you’re used to. Winter in Dubois is not a surprise. It can be tough. We knew that and dealt with it accordingly. For some, that meant leaving before winter arrived,” he said. “Those of us who continued living and working in Dubois during the winter kind of good naturedly scoffed at the snow birds.”
Knobel believes there is a toughness to Wyoming folks that keeps them going during the state’s often harsh winter weather.
Sniffin observed people in the Dallas area wearing heavy coats, boots and stocking caps in 45-degree weather.
“In Wyoming, that is nearly short-sleeved shirt weather,” he said.
Lessons Learned From The Texas Cold
Knobel said he learned one of his most important winter storm lessons in Texas a few years back when the state was hit with record low temperatures and lots of people lost electricity.
“We were in a rental house that felt like it was built cheaply in the 1950s,” he said. "Single-pain windows. No insulation and with no electricity, we had no heat. We were woefully unprepared as I think many Texans were.
"Twenty degrees is super cold here and it got down to near zero. My family and I wore our warmest clothes 24 hours a day and huddled together under a massive pile of blankets.”
He believes some of the concern with this winter storm may be due to what people experienced in 2021. He said people aren’t exactly panicked in Dallas this week, but they are concerned.
Knobel said grocery stores in his area were busy.
Some stores Friday were low in stock, but others still had products on hand. Crisis bellwether toilet paper was still available, though in some stores only premium brands were left.
He said people in Wyoming are built for harsh winter weather, but also importantly so are their homes, cars, businesses and infrastructure.
“Preparation is key,” he said. "People in Dallas aren’t used to this kind of weather. They don’t get it that often so they haven’t built things to withstand a lot of cold and snow."
Knobel said it’s also a matter of scale.
The Dallas-Ft. Worth metro area has one of the highest populations in the nation.
Sharing the road with millions of fellow motorists can be hazardous even in the best of conditions. Add ice and it can be a real rodeo.
“I don’t want my family to be in the same position we were in a few years ago with the record cold,” Knobel said. “We are in a different house now and one of the first things I did was put in a wood stove. We also have new windows and solar backup.
“I had to come to Texas to relearn the lessons that are a matter of course for people in Wyoming,” he added. "They don’t need to be told to go get gas in their truck before a storm comes because their dad taught them from the time they could drive, ‘don’t drive on the bottom half of the tank in winter.”
