Here's the problem: even in your front yard if you cannot see your own hand

You could be 10 feet from your front door and not be able to find it. This is just how bad a white out can be. This was what we faced just trying to get from Bunny Flats to Horse Camp Lodge on Mt. Shasta. We thought we could do it until we saw we had walked in a circle and met our own tracks. We knew we might not survive this then as it was 25 to 30 degrees and we couldn't navigate up or down or sideways. Luckily one of us had just taken a Winter survival course in college and had dug a snow cave as a survival exercise so we didn't die. Inside a snow cave the temperature can reach up to 50 degrees with out melting even if it was below zero outside. In other words instead of building an igloo you just dig a snow cave to survive out of the wind and blizzard.