As you may have heard, we had a big ice storm Wednesday. It rained all day, and as the temperature dropped, we had momentary breaks in electricity. I gave up on trying to run the computer, and I shut it off. We sat at home and watched the ice building up on the trees and wires. There’s really nothing you can do about freezing rain. If you reach up with a pole to rattle the branches on a tree, they break anyway. It was raining so steadily that the water on the streets never froze. The wind and rain continued, and, with a bang at 2:10am, the power was gone. Thursday morning, there was enough hot water in the heater to take a brief shower. Fortunately, we have a gas cookstove, which we used to keep the house reasonably warm. All the firewood is welded together by half an inch of ice, so using the fireplace was out. I took a walk around the neighborhood, and every powerline had dozens of trees leaning on it. Most trees had some broken limbs, and many were too damaged to leave them standing. By Thursday evening, we got bored enough to unlatch the garage door from the electric opener and muscle the door open. All the stores we visited were out of D and C size batteries. The radio news said 180,000 homes were without power. We got a couple of steaks out of the freezer. The gas grill still worked, of course. So we had steak and pan-fried potatoes by candlelight.
Today is Friday, and there were light & power guys all over the neighborhood with their chainsaws in full song. The power came back on at 10:52am. We had put a lot of food into coolers on the patio, so we only lost about $25 worth of food. Not bad.
FWIW, I had The Weather Channel on for a moment yesterday evening, and they replayed a report a guy from WTHR did from Anderson, Elwood, and Alexandria. For once, I wasn’t homesick…
Good to hear you made it out, AskNott. I was untouched over on the northwest side of Indy, though we do have a “boil water” alert from the water company. They say it’s just sediment, and the water is drinkable, but if was drinkable, why would you have to boil it? Very interesting. Regardless, I’m avoiding it at all costs. Most of the schools were closed because they can’t feed 'em (because of the water).
The ice storm in Arkansas in 2000 or 2001 had our rural area without power for several days. We too heated the bouse with a gas stove.
The most memorable thing was walking outside and seeing the entire world sheathed in ice. Two white tail deer were walking down the street. They stopped and looked down my dirt road. We had eye contact for several seconds. When I turned to show Mrs. Plant, they moved away.
93,000 folks are still without power around here. Crews from 5 other cities are pitching in to help. Last night brought 5 inches of wet, heavy snow. For us, the snow is just an inconvenience, but for the folks still without power, it’s another slap in the face. It added further weight to the trees, and some more broke apart.
We have reports of a couple of fires from people refilling their kerosene heaters indoors. Emergency Management officials are warning folks not to run generators indoors, not even in enclosed garages. That seems obvious :smack: to me, but some folks don’t figure it out on their own.
Back in 1991, there was a large ice storm here in southern Minnesota. (It may have affected other parts of the state as well, but I don’t recall.) Our power was out for 5 days, and the toilets were out for half that time.
Luckily, we had a wood stove and were able to live off of canned food for a while. School was of course canceled for nearly a week, making this time very bittersweet for me - no school, but no TV or Nintendo or computer or light or … well, not really much of anything.
My family huddled in the living room around the stove, and in the evening lit candles for a couple hours and told stories. In the mornings I’d go outside and play and just look. The entire area where I lived (a state park) was coated with ice. There were acres of trees, dozen of them broken and fallen. Each twig on each branch on each tree had it’s own perfectly fit sheath of ice. When the rays of the rising sun hit the ice the entire world sparkled.
That’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
I thought it was mostly randolph, delaware and madison county that lost power. My parents haven’t gotten theirs back on yet (they are in Randolph county) and don’t expect to until monday. It went out wednesday at noon. I went to muncie and bought a generator for them though so they have it alot better now. They have some lights, a working refrigerator, running water and the TV working now.
I heard on the radio there are normally 83 electrical workers running the grid in that area but with the icestorm they have 1500 from different states working around the clock to fix everything.
Yes, MissGypsy, I’m in Anderson, on the northside, close enough to Forest Hills Elementary School to hear the kids at recess. I just heard that 69,500 people are still without power, but they hope to have everybody back up by sometime Wednesday. Most schools and churches are closed, though some of them are being used as emergency shelters. The Red Cross is very busy, running the shelters and helping people who can’t get out.
It doesn’t feel right using the words disaster and tragic, considering the Boxing Day Tsunami. However, a whole lot of people are temporarily homeless. Maybe it’s silly, but I feel very sad to see all those fine old trees lying in pieces on the ground.
It is a major deal though, because almost everyone with a basement had their basement flooded and the basement has alot of electrical equiptment like a washer and drier, refrigerator, freezer, power tools, exercise equiptment, wood furnishings, etc. Each home probably has a couple of thousand dollars worth of damage done to it or more. If it was just going without everyone loves raymond for a week it wouldn’t be tragic but i’m sure there was hundreds of millions worth of damage done to 3 rural counties in indiana. There were 106,000 homes affected and when you factor in all the money spent repairing them, repairing the electrical grid, getting new furnishings for the basement, all the money spent on hotels and portable generators and all the flood damage then a figure of over $150 million is reasonable.
In retrospect this isn’t true of all homes just homes with basements. However the cost of all the lost business, people buying hotels and generators that they wouldn’t normally buy and the water and ice damage still most likely tops $150 million for 3 rural counties in Indiana.
[slight hijack]Weird, not only my hometown, but my old neighborhood. I grew up on North Drive, about halfway between the school and Madison Ave. Last time I drove by the old house, the new owners hadn’t even taken down the horse & carriage thing on top of the mailbox, which had my dad’s name on it.
My mom now lives in those condos off 48th St, by the ballpark, and her power wasn’t off for long, thank goodness. She was recalling that ice storm of 1990 (
? maybe '91) when we had no power for about four days there in Forest Hills.[/slight hijack]
When the ice storm of '91 hit, I was in the process of making an offer on this place. My Realtor said it was the first time she had ever written an offer by candlelight.
On an unrelated note what is it like living in Anderson? I have only been there a few times but it doesn’t seem to be a bad town. Is the crime situation severe in some parts, overall is it a good town to live in?
