Tuesday, January 20, 2009

The Ice Storm In December of 2007

I have experienced a LOT of things in my life, but this was pretty close to the top of most incredible things, albeit horrifying, I have had to deal with. I'm not sure now when it started, but I think it was the very early morning of December 9th. It had been cold and wet the day and night before, and during the night, everything froze. The eerie sound of the tree limbs snapping, the ice falling and shattering, st times became scary, to say the least. The smaller limbs made a distinct snap, and fell to the ground, along with the ice. Then you would hear what only sounded like glass shattering as the limbs would fall throught the trees, knocking ice down with it.
But when HUGE limbs and trees began to crash to the ground, it was scary.

Then about 3:00 a.m. there was a HUGE explosion and the sky turned a greenish blue. It lit up several times, and then the power was gone. Not for an hour, not for several hours...not for a day...it dragged on for 10 days. NO power for 10 days. To some, this may not seem like a big deal, but the electricity was what ran the thermostat that made the gas radiators come on. So, not only did we not have anyway to cook, we had NO heat. I had some food storage, but didn't include the canisters for the camp stove. Had I thought of that, I would have been able to crank that up.



Fortunately, I horde things. Down in the basement, I had wood that I was going to use for crafts. I started burning it in the basement fireplace. While I was down there, I started to organize things to keep warm.
Bobby was under blankets in the living room.




We decided to venture outside to check out the damage and I was horrified to see what nature can do. It was like nothing I have ever experienced before. The devastation was great and it was everywhere. Trees were down all over the city. Roads were blocked, One word came to mind...HAVOC!
Plain and simple. In some ways, the ice was beautiful,











but in reality, it was dangerous and in the middle of the night became horrifying.
For days all you could hear was the ice falling and shattering and the limbs falling and crashing. Hoping it wasn't on the cars or the house.It was hard to sleep, not only because of the cold, but fear of what could happen. Bobby was outside almost every morning at 4 a.m. when the guy who delivered out paper came by. They would talk about what was going on with the trees and limbs, and how he had several close calls.
The first day, we ventured out also on the roads in search of food. Taco Johns on the North Belt was the only place open. We had some hot food, and went home.
The temperature in the house got down to 38 degrees. Yeah...it was cold. We had a generator, but hadn't gotten it back. When we called, they had loaned it to an older woman with a heart problem who needed it to run her heart machine. When her power was turned on about six days later, it was returned to us and friends hooked it up at out home. Now we had heat...and a way to cook. We did find out that we had hot water about three days in to the ice storm. That was AWESOME!!!
Several men from church went to other church members houses and cut up most of the big limbs. Bobby bought a chain saw and went out too.Most everything was closed. It took months for the city crews to clean up the debris; people from other states came to help with the clean up. Electrical workers came from far away states to fix transformers. Power lines had snapped all over town and transformers were blown everywhere. I was able to make some cookies, and when they guys came to do the power lines from the power pole to the house, I gave them a plate of cookies. They were from Michigan and spent a good two weeks or more away from their families, helping our little town. I was grateful! It was a Sunday morning and I was getting ready for church when the power was restored to our area. There were others in town whose power wasn't restored for days. I was thankful we only were without it for the ten days. It was an aweing experience. One I shall not forget; one I am glad to have experienced...I am thankful for a living prophet, and I know why he admonishes us to be prepared.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Just getting things started

So, I'm going to do this. Everyone is blogging, and since I like to write, I'm going to do this. As soon as I find out how to do other things, I will do that. Like some of those cool lay-outs. Ohhhh and the pictues. I figure this is a good way to read about everyone. Keep in touch, things like that. Anyway, I'm just learning about this and it's almost one in the morning. I figure if I can get this to go where it's supposed to and all, I'm doing pretty well. Then I will write more things and try to figure out how to add pictures and stuff like that. So, this is it for my first post. Exciting isn't it?!