After last weekend’s 100-car pileup on icy roads outside Grand Rapids, Michigan, most Americans—myself included—were on high alert for any sign of weather-related dangers in our own backyards.

Enter TV newscasters hyping the “Monster Winter Storm of 2026,” billed as likely to plunge a wide swath of the United States stretching from Las Vegas to New England with “catastrophic ice, snow and power outages, which are projected to be the worst stress on power grids dating back at least 15 years.” Dire special reports aired on local and network TV, scaring young and older viewers alike with visions of ice-covered tree limbs falling on cars and downing power lines, impacting 240-million people in over 40 states. Everyone from over-the-road truckers to casual drivers was cautioned to stay off roads and highways, which would become deadly as they were covered by freezing sleet and the dreaded black ice.

In Dallas-Ft Worth, where I live, residents followed the unofficial DFW rule: Any threat of .25-inches of ice equals a mandatory stampede to Walmart or Target to strip the entire produce department section right down to the studs. At midweek, I dropped by one grocery store where the beef counters had already been hollowed out…there literally wasn’t a single can of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup available…and panicky shoppers were banging their carts into each other........

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