A Memphis police officer took to his radio Monday to alert headquarters to a developing situation Downtown.

“I’ve got an individual on some skis riding on Second Street,” the officer said over the police scanner. “I’m trying to catch up with him.”

After a moment, headquarters responded: “Go ahead and address that guy and tell him he can’t be in the middle of the street with those skis on.”

Young Grizzlies hand loss to Warriors, have some well-deserved fun

“That” guy was Hank Yoder, 29. He grew up in Massachusetts and lives in Colorado but works in Memphis, renovating homes. Yoder happened to bring his skis back home to Massachusetts this past Christmas then headed straight to Memphis to get back to work. So he had his skis with him in The Memphian hotel.

“When the snow started falling, I called my mom and said, ‘You know, this really might work,’” Yoder said. “And it did. I’ve been all over the city today.”

As for the police?

“They started yelling at me to get off the road,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it. It’s not like anyone else is out here. The only people driving are going really slow.”

Yoder then suggested the police should maybe spend more time stopping people from stealing HVAC units from the homes his company renovates. But this is not the moment for acrimony! So I asked Yoder to evaluate Memphis as a ski town.

“It turns out that the total lack of plowing has turned the road into a really flat, packed surface that is perfect for cross-country skiing,” he said.

So ski Memphis, everyone! While the snow and ice last!

And it could last a good long while, according to Memphis Mayor Paul Young, who presided over a press conference later in the day.

“We will not get above 32 until Thursday, and then we will drop again until at least Sunday,” he said. “Today, we had a high of 12 degrees.”

That makes Monday the coldest Martin Luther King Jr. Day since it was established as a federal holiday, said Chelsea Chandler, meteorologist at FOX 13 Memphis (WHBQ-TV).

Mind you, Chandler wore battery-operated clothing while she was doing her morning hits for the television station.

“My beanie, vest, pants and gloves were all heated by lithium batteries,” she said.

At one point, a producer urged Chandler to “go find the people.”

You know, to interview.

“I told them there were no people,” she said. “Everyone was inside.”

Maybe that’s the good news and bad news about the first days of this particular snow emergency. It felt like everyone was inside where it was warm.

One reason it was warm: Almost nobody lost power. When the mayor began his press event at 3:30 p.m, the Memphis Light, Gas and Water outage map reported just 17 outages impacting 246 customers. So 99.4% of Memphians were snug in their homes.

Meanwhile, the streets were mostly empty as people poked along in their SUVs. In roughly four hours of driving around Memphis Monday, I didn’t see a single accident or stranded vehicle.

“I have to say, out of all the snow storms we’ve had, this is probably one of the best ones as far as driving,” said Chris Pennington, an officer with the Memphis Police Department.

But there weren’t as many revelers as you’d see on a typical snow day in Memphis, either. It was just too cold.

Russell Jackson, 42, went for a long run through Overton Park Sunday after the storm hit. He paid for it with a frozen beard.

“I had definitive icicles in there,” he said. “Unfortunately, they did not work as a hydration source.”

Some families went sledding, briefly. Snowmen were few and far between. If you wanted to escape the house and get something to eat, your choices were highly limited.

“We almost never close,” said Don DeWeese, the owner of Gibson’s Donuts, which closed late Sunday after the donuts ran out. “Since the pandemic, we’ve been closed for maybe one day. But we were worried about safety of employees who have to get there. Not everyone drives like they’re from Buffalo.”

DeWeese stayed home Monday and baked a chocolate sheet cake, just for fun. He said Gibson’s is planning to open by 9 a.m. Tuesday, offering old-fashioned blueberry donuts for the desperate.

But the cold is dangerous, of course. That’s the message city officials emphasized Monday afternoon. Some 300 people had checked into the city’s warming centers. Men, women and children, too.

Doug McGowen, the president and CEO of MLGW, said he might yet issue a voluntary conservation alert.

“This is a historic period of cold, with the depth of the temperatures — in other words, how cold they are — and how long they are staying around,” McGowen said. “This will go down as one of the coldest, longest periods we have had.”

So this snow day will stretch into snow days. Everyone will be tired of it before long. The hope is that Memphians will retain their senses of humor and make the best of things.

That’s what the Ornelas family did Monday. They live in Houston and found themselves in the city on a whim.

“It was a Black Friday sale,” said Kara Ornelas. “The airfares to Memphis were really cheap. And we had never been to Memphis before. We never expected this snow.”

The Ornelases — Kara, Vincent and their two kids, Holly and Samuel — had a grand time, anyway. They ate at Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken. They went to see The Peabody ducks.

“The fountain is actually closed for repairs,” Vincent said. “They just march in and march out again. But I’m a big fan of ducks.” 

And then early Monday afternoon, the Ornelases made their way to the National Civil Rights Museum, which was closed because of the storm. As it happens, a snowstorm in March 1968 forced King to delay his trip to Memphis to support the sanitation workers’ strike. When King came to the city two weeks later, he was assassinated.

“We wanted the kids to see this,” said Vincent Ornelas. “Even though the museum is closed, you can play a recording of his voice. To hear his voice in this place on this day? We feel lucky to be here, even with the snow.”

So try to live in that spirit, Memphis. It could be a long week. And given the everyday tumult of living in the city, maybe we all needed to stay inside for a bit.

Or, as a caller to my radio show put it: “Sometimes, God has a way of making us sit down.”