If you haven't read the previous day's blog (from the 15th) go back and read it. Otherwise, I am continuing the ice storm saga in this post.
So by day two our neighbors had started to venture out to talk to one another. Unfortunately for the kids, it was too dangerous to actually enjoy the snow and ice with sledding, and the added risk of them getting wet and cold without having a way to warm up in our house. But it felt good to at least talk to other people and get news and information they had gathered. One neighbor, hearing that he could at least get to the interstate in his car, decided to pack up his dog and head for the electric vibe of a friend's house in Nashville. In ditching his house to the elements he left us with two valuable commodities. First, he has a gas stovetop which was working fine. Second, he had a phone that only needed to be plugged into a phone jack to work (ours all required electricity). And because I frequently walk his dog for him when he's out of town on business, I had a key to his house, and his blessing to raid it.
Ironically, I had to loan him $40 to have on hand in case he needed it before reaching N'ville, as the ATMs were all non-functional in our town. This man always has a huge supply of cash, but he didn't at the one time he truly needed it.
We muddled through another day of board games and cards at the kitchen table, interrupted only with intense sessions of listening to the local NBC affiliate on the crank radio. They were finally broadcasting again, and they realized that they needed to preempt regular programming to just inform this end of the state with news and updates about electric service, where gas was available (which was rare); where a pallet of generators had just been delivered for sale; which stores were open, and for how long, and what restrictions were on them (eg: Wally World was open to cash customers only; 25 at a time in the store, and a spending limit of $25). I realized that the more I listened to the news the more anxious I became about what was going on outside our own neighborhood. It was frightening to hear that the local hospitals were running on generators only, and that all available personnel were required to be there to help. It was scary when the main source of news...the NBC affiliate...went off the air because their generators ran out of fuel and they had to get more. It made me nervous to hear that local communities were out of running water because pumping stations had shut down for lack of power. It was terrifying to realize just how primitive our lives had become. And the more we listened, the more we knew that we just had to make it until we could do something different. We inventoried our food again, and knew that we were in good shape. We added more vessels of drinking water to our already large supply. We put blankets and towels around spaces where cold air could leak in. And we tried to remain calm and optimistic in front of the kids.
At dinner that night we all said what we were grateful for...we reminded ourselves that many people were in much, much more difficult situations than we were. And when we went to bed that night we no longer heard the crashing of trees. We managed to stay warm in our blankets and layers of clothing, and we slept.
The next morning it truly was cold in our house. Two different neighbors came by within minutes of each other to offer the warmth of their gas log fireplaces. One neighbor had a working cell phone and I jumped at his offer to use it for a moment. I called my brother in Missouri to reassure him that we were okay, but I had to make the call short because the phone had another call beeping in. We decided to take up the offer of one of the neighbors to enjoy their fireplace while they were at work all day (they both work at hospitals, and they took their daughters with them to be in a warm place that day). We packed up some games and snacks and our radio and headed across the street. I'll admit it really was nice to sit in a room and not shiver. Their fireplace kept us comfortable for a few hours. We played with their dog, and ate sandwiches for lunch huddled next to the fireplace. As we occasionally listened to our radio we began hearing reports of how long it would take to restore power in the different REAs and power companies around the area. When we heard that our REA might take as long as two weeks to get back online I began to cry. When I next heard that there were several hundred linemen from other companies either in route, or already working in our area, I cried again.
I decided in the early afternoon that I would go commandeer our other neighbor's jack-only phone. I returned with it to our house to begin the process of trying to reach the outside world. For the first 20 minutes that I tried I got a constant busy signal, or a recorded message that service was not available. Again, I started to despair about my inability to communicate. I just needed to find out IF we could get somewhere...how far would we have to drive before we could readily find gasoline? How bad were roads between us and destinations where we had family?
We got the kids to hit the "redial" button on the phone so we could do other stuff. I had The Reenactor's parents' phone number in the redial. We had decided that since they lived just an hour away, and on the side of storm that might not have had as much damage, we would attempt to reach them to see if we could go there to stay for a couple of days. Finally the kids yelled that the line had gone to something other than the recording. Mother-in-law answered the phone and initially said that they had power. I asked if we could come stay with them, but as we talked I realized that they DIDN'T have power..she had misunderstood me. They didn't even have a way to cook because they have an electric stove and oven. They were keeping warm by the gas log fireplace, though, and eating lots of peanut butter and crackers. A generator was going to be hooked up in the next day, and we were encouraged to come over, but after The Reenactor and I discussed it, the destination wasn't worth the journey. We still felt the need to stay home and keep an eye on our own house, and short of a close-by promise of the utopia of electricity and heat, we weren't moving.
The national weather service called for temps to drop into the teens that night, as it had been the night before. We worried about our plumbing, and left the faucets dripping, and so far they hadn't frozen.
For dinner I took some fish and shrimp I had thawed out from our now-warm freezer, and drove it to the neighbor's house who had left town for N'ville. There I used his gas range to make a huge steaming pot of fish stew, and another pot of rice. I helped myself to his beer cooler while I was cooking and that, plus having just a half-hour of quiet to myself, helped considerably. I returned to our house with the steaming food, and we ate a wonderful hot meal. But each day the temperature inside the house had dropped by about 10 degrees, and it was definitely getting cold inside.
We decided to take up yet another neighbor's offer of a warm gas log fireplace and ventured there to sit for an hour and get toasty warm before returning to our own house to sleep. They had offered to let us sleep at their house, but we were fine once we got in bed with all our covers, so we just asked if we could sit with them for a while.
Their living room was 80 degrees if it was anything, and it felt like heaven to me. A half-hour after arriving The Reenactor noticed that a Jeep had pulled into our driveway across the street. We didn't know who it was, so he left to go check it out.
More to come....
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