What You'll Need
Preparing for Icey Sidewalks
An important item to remember is that icy sidewalks, driveways, and streets are troubling enough under everyday conditions but become a lot more risky when you are lugging around cumbersome boxes or furniture and cannot watch your step as carefully. If it's icy where you reside, shovel the walkways as wholly as possible and salt the entire walk betwixt your front door and the portal of the moving truck. When you're completed, put up your shovels and bag of salt in the trunk of your own vehicle or make sure they are packed last in the truck. This will guarantee that you can clear driveways and walkways at your new home as well.
Protecting Your Floors
Another ice and snow related problem is the state of your floors. When people are tramping through ice and snow to get into your home, that slush will stay on their footwear and will be tracked all over your spotless floors or, worse, soak yucky slush into your carpets. To protect both the home you are leaving and the one you are moving into, use tarps and plastic sheeting to keep snow-covered shoes off your flooring.
Planning for Icy Roads in Tulsa and Oklahoma City
The next consideration is the possibility that the streets you'll be taking are likely to also be coated in ice and possibly people still traveling from the holidays. Expect heavy traffic, accidents, backups, and all manner of delays. This means that if you have a moving deadline, you'll want to leave early to ensure that you have an extra few days to both drive to your destination and get everything unloaded in the elements.
For efficiency and safety's sake, you may also want two or three alternate routes or have an app ready to help you plan detours in the event that there's a bad traffic or weather issue on your primary planned route.
Landing Somewhere Warm
After a long drive in the moving truck or your own automobile in a caravan with your moving trucks, you're going to want to warm yourself in the new house very fast. This means that any delays getting the house open and the heater own can be problematic, especially if the utilities aren't ready yet. Make sure to have water, electricity, and gas, if applicable, turned on at the new place. Attempt to arrive ahead of the trucks or see if a local contact can access the house and get it warming up before the convoy shows up and begins unpacking.
Take Care of Yourself and Your Movers
Moving in the frigid weather is hard work with a combined risk of freezing, getting too warm, and getting dangerously dehydrated as your body loses moisture to the cold. After you get the heater started up, consider making a big pot of hot tea or cocoa along with a pitcher of room-temperature (not freezing cold) water. Keep yourself hydrated and warm with cups of tea and pass mugs or a thermos around for the movers and any friends who are helping you. Then, everyone is energetic and unlikely to get too exhausted or get a cold during the relocation.
Moving in the winter is tough business, but something you can surely accomplish with a little forward organization and consideration for everyone involved. By making sure all walkways have the snow and ice removed, the destination home is warm, and everyone drinks and stays hydrated, you will be able to get all your possessions safely from one icy house to another.
