A Tuesday snowfall — heavy on the north end of Whidbey Island, lighter on South Whidbey — was a sure way to bring the normally relaxed pace of the island to a complete standstill.

Having heeded a week of warnings concerning the snow, it seemed that nearly everyone stayed home for this, the biggest snow day of the year for Western Washington. Though accumulations were nearly nothing by the start of the weekday morning rush hour, every school district on Whidbey Island called off classes, while many commuters chose to stay home from work, leaving ferry docks practically empty.

The snow follows a four-day cold snap that has been causing problems of its own. Burst water pipes in homes have been the most obvious sign that the Pacific Northwest’s sudden winter is more harsh than the region’s residents expected.

Palmer Bodin, owner of the 24-hour Langley plumbing service company BERT, said from Saturday night to Tuesday morning his staff had responded to over 75 calls specifically for frozen or burst pipes.

“We’ve have had all of our techs busy since Saturday night,” he said.

Over the past few days, Bodin said, many homeowners were awakened after their pipes burst or hot water tank started leaking. If the cold weather persists, so might these domestic disasters.

“We’re gearing up for this to continue,” Bodin said about the weather.

Bodin’s tip for homeowners on Tuesday was to take preventative measures, like putting proper insulation on pipes in garages, under houses or on the outside wall of a house.

The weather caught many people off guard in terms of having the right stuff. In Freeland, Ace Hardware manager Mark Brown said his store had many customers looking for heat tape and insulating covers to keep their pipes from freezing.

“Everyone’s panicking and trying to get what they need,” Brown said.

At Sebo’s Do-It-Center in Bayview Tuesday, store owner Frank Parra said even the hardware store didn’t have everything needed to combat the snowfall.

“Because we didn’t have snow the last four or five years we didn’t bring snow shovels in,” he said.

The lack of shovels wasn’t a big deal. Warned by meteorologists that the snow would not last, many islanders just headed outside with sleds, snowboards and kids to have a good time. Though it wasn’t technically legal, a number of Langley residents used the steep Fourth Street hill as a sledding run. Timothy Hull was on the hill with a group of friends and their children, trying to find a way to move the kids downhill in a large bucket. Apparently, the group was just as unprepared for snow as everyone else.

“The bucket’s not really working,” he said has he hauled preschooler Liva Lomne-Licastro uphill by pulling the container with a nylon rope.

The snow wasn’t as funny for Island Transit, which struggled to keep its buses on time throughout the day. Martha Rose, the transit’s director, said Tuesday that the buses would, except in some places in Oak Harbor, would keep rolling.

“We’re trying to hang in there but mother nature isn’t letting us,” she said.

Due to many road closures in Oak Harbor, three routes in that city were cancelled. The snow also endangered other routes, some of which were up for cancellation later in the day.

Island Transit’s main concern was to prevent people from getting stranded. Rose said the weather deteriorated after many commuters left the island Tuesday morning. Island Transit staff spent the between-commutes hours figuring out how to get commuters home later that day.