I've finally found after nearly three weeks the mental energy to blog again. I have wanted to sit down and write out my thoughts many, many times in the last 20 days, but just couldn't summon up the will to commit all the many notions, ideas and observations I've had to my blog.
That, and our electricity and/or internet access wasn't working.
For those of you who know me who but are living in an alternate universe somewhere, my family was one of thousands who were part of the massive ice storm that hit the middle of the country on January 26. The county I live in, as well as six or seven counties immediately around us, seemed to suffer the worst of the storm. NOAA now reports that from 1 1/2" to 2" inches of ice coated the trees and power lines here. Within twelve hours of the storm's arrival in our area we lost power. We were fortunate...in our particular subdivision we remained without power for four days. Two sudivisions immediately to our north, but on a different line were without power nearly two weeks. As of today, there are still thousands of people in our part of the state who do not have power restored to their homes.
Additionally, we were unable to make cell phone calls for nearly three days because our cell provider (begins with an "A" and ends with a "T") had apparently leased their good towers to a rival company (begins with a V and ends with an "N") and were using towers leased to them by a company with inferior equipment. This is what I was told by a friend who has inside information. The good cell towers (used by the competitor) maintained decent service throughout the storm. Our cell company's leased towers failed, and we were unable to communicate with the outside world. In addition, land line phones were either overloaded with people trying to make calls, or seriously affected as well by the storm (and resulting massive power loss in the area) and making a call that way was almost impossible as well.
I've got lots to say about all this. As of this writing, tonight, it is just about my initial observation of the storm itself.
First, being the daughter of an electrical engineer who worked for a power company I have always had a huge appreciation for electricity, and the people who make it magically appear in our lives. I don't understand how it works, and much to my father's disappointment will probably never grasp the concept, but I know that it is dangerous work for those who actually work near the stuff (can't see it, can't smell it, can't hear it, but it's lethal if you touch it).
I know that on the heels of many a thunderstorm or ice storm my dad was out the door to see about repairing whatever damage had occurred to his lines. Many times he and his crews were away from their homes for days making sure everyone had power restored. Your average homeowner probably has no real grasp of just how complicated that maze of lines connecting a home to a transformer somewhere to line, to a substation, or wherever the heck it goes...ultimately going all the way to the coal-fired power plant, or hydroelectric facility that generates it all to begin with. Those wires don't just have electricity coursing through them all by themselves, and they all have to be connected together in one big spider web. And, as I was reminded this week by someone who works for an REA, it took 70 years to build a system like this, and just hours for a storm of this magnitude to render huge chunks of it useless. Poles were snapped like toothpicks, tree limbs inches in diameter fell across and broke lines, leaving them curled on the road like a summer's worth of snakes. Transformers (or hopalongs as my mom used to call them) lay on the ground in snarls of limbs and tree trunks.
My dad would have been mighty impressed with just how much damage was done here.
So on that first morning, when the power blipped once, twice, three times, then finally a minute later shut down with a finality that I knew meant it was going to be out for a while we all rallied to the idea that we would get by for a day or two with candles, flashlights, our trusty camping stove (used in the ventilated garage, thank you, Jenny!) and layering clothing. It was camping inside! It would be an adventure! the kids were onboard, and we set about the task of making sure our ducks were in a row. We put all the items to illuminate with in one specific location, so we could find them in the dark if need be; we set up the campstove in the garage ready for that first meal while we still had daylight (via the open garage door) to see what we were doing. We got out our tote boxes of camping gear with our wool blankets and sleeping bags. We filled up the bathtub and extra containers (five gallon water can) etc. with water in case the need arose to use them to flush the toilets (or to drink). We inventoried our food supply and decided which foods to eat first...the ones most likely to expire in limited refrigeration. And we listed the resources we still had working for us. Namely, we had a gas water heater that thankfully supplied us throughout the power outage with lovely hot water. We had a crank weather/AM/FM/TV radio that we could listen to just by several turns of a handle. We also weren't terribly cold that first day because our house retained much of the heat that had been in it before the storm hit. And we had lots of jackets, sweaters, coats, hats, and warm socks to keep us comfortable.
We spent that first day playing board games with the kids. Again, it was fun. It was a lark...something for them to remember in the future.
Then, as the ice got thicker, the trees began to scream.
The first notice we had of this was that we heard a loud wooooooosh right in front of our house. We rushed to the front door and T1 immediately started crying hysterically. Our bradford pear tree...the one T1 and T2 love to climb...had split open and was laying in a huge fan across our front sidewalk and driveway. T1 was devastated. Suddenly this wasn't fun anymore. And suddenly I became really worried about our other trees. I stood outside on the front porch for a while and heard the crashes of limbs in the woods around us. I watched as the drizzle that was falling continued to coat everything above ground with a glaze of ice thicker than my finger.
That night we ate by candlelight. We had a yummy hot meal, and did a family cleanup job with our hot water and plenty of dish towels. We decided to have the kids sleep in our room...the farthest room in the house from the fall line of our biggest trees, and with the idea that by shutting the doors of our room we were creating a warmer, cozier space for all of us. I found that I couldn't sleep...the forecast had been for an additional coating of two to four inches of wet snow on top of the ice, and the dire prediction was that this would cause even further damage.
The weather service was right.
Starting about 9 o'clock that night I heard nothing but crashes. Huge, heavy thuds that were tree trunks or major limbs falling to the ground. The chandelier-crashing sound of limbs coated with ice falling to the ground. And the worst was when it was close to our house. I was convinced that a huge sycamore tree we have in our yard was going to end up on our roof. I kept an ongoing vigil by the front door that night. At the sound of each major crash I got up and went to the door to sweep the lawn outside with the beam of my flashlight. It went on all night. Every ten seconds on average I heard a crash. It was like listening to a war of sorts. I was in terror of what the ice might bring down on our house, yet helpless to do anything but watch in horror through the windows, or lie in bed cringing with each crash.
At morning's light we saw the damage. The snow had indeed fallen and with it, had brought down many of the trees in the yards and woods surrounding our subdivision. We lost a mature hackberry tree...which was split in half about six feet up from the ground. We lost nearly half the limbs on the sycamore, but thanks to an arborist who has already been here to clean up our property, we think it is saved. We lost the bradford pear, which was the hardest emotionally for us. But we were fortunate that is all we lost.
More to come.
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