My boxes and bubble wrap are being held hostage!

For the past 2 weeks, our basement stairs have been encased in super thick ice. There are some bad gutters on the back of our building that have created some enormous icicles and a crazy mess of ice on our back stairs and walkway. We're basically unable to get down to our basement (you can see why from the photo of the basement stairs below).

Yesterday was our warmest day in 2 weeks (we hit a balmy 39°) so I went out back to check out the ice to see if it was melting and I totally wiped out. On my way to the basement steps, I fell down our porch stairs (which were the ones that weren't supposed to be slippery). Ouch! Luckily I ended up without anything broken or sprained. Just bruised and sore. Ian managed to get down the basement steps to clear up the drain to hopefully keep the icy from getting much worse (and snap this picture) .

There are 2 problems with this situation.

1: We can't get to the washer & dryer
2: I can't get to my newly stocked stash of boxes and bubble wrap.

In anticipation of needing to ship a huge dinnerware set to California (and an upcoming move), I placed an order for a slew of boxes, bubble wrap and foam a couple of weeks ago. As usual, I stored it all in our basement (before the ice appeared). I usually try to use recycled packaging, but I did so much shipping over the holiday season, I had completely depleted my supplies. Now the ice is holding all of my shipping supplies hostage! The fall down the steps that weren't very icy has scared me off from trying to rescue my boxes and bubble wrap until there's some major melting. Please send your warm thoughts to Chicago!