Monday's Ice Storm Damage

We knew Sunday evening that we might get some ice out of the storm that was heading our way. But it wasn't supposed to be very bad. We all know that the forecasters here are seldom right. This time they were both right and wrong. Right that we did get ice. Wrong in how much! At 3:00 a.m. Monday, I was awakened by the sound of the power going out. I called the power company, even though I knew it was not just ours by looking out the window. But I was the first to report for our area. Bill got up to unlock the back gate, then he set his Blackberry to wake us up at 5:00. At 5:00, he got up and looked out and then he came back to tell me that I wasn't going anywhere. Because of the limb on my car.


It wasn't a huge limb, but it was a good sized one and there was no way we could move it out of the way.

That was just the start of the day's adventures! We let Otter sleep in, and Bill got a fire going in the fireplace. I'm so glad we have it. I have a gas stove, so I was at least able to get water boiling so we could have coffee. Without coffee, it would have been much worse!

Bill was able to get the car moved up closer to the garage door so we could see that it was ok, and he was able to get the van out so he went to get a chainsaw since we knew by then that we would have more tree limbs to deal with. Good thing he went when he did, the store was selling out quick. He went out again later, to borrow a ladder from his dad and he also got ice so we emptied the fridge into a cooler and put it out on the back porch - it was colder out there.

All day long we could hear tree limbs popping and falling. It sounded like gunshots or small explosions. Quite a few of the trees were our own. We have probably lost all 4 in the front yard. The tree in the back might make it, but that remains to be seen. The one on the side of the garage in the front doesn't look too good, either. The captions are below the pictures they are describing.

This is the side tree. All the rest are the front yard, except for the last one which is the back yard. This was early, there was a lot more of it that fell.

This is standing in the street, looking back towards our house. This particular tree was also blocking quite a bit of the street.

This is the back yard tree.

And as bad as these are, it got worse later on. I took pictures later but the disk had a problem so they didn't come out.

Bill loves gadgets, and he has several wind-up radio flashlights. They last for about 30 minutes, so we spent a lot of time winding them up yesterday but at least it kept us busy! That is, when we weren't out in the front yard with the chainsaw to get the tree out of the street. We're going to get a lot of firewood out of this, at least there is that as a bright side.

We camped out in the living room last night, and Maggie beagle apparently decided that my feet needed to be kept warm because when I woke up she was on top of them!

Otter didn't have school yesterday, due to the power being out, and no school today either. So I took her to work with me today. Most of the Tulsa area has been without power, although there are pockets that never lost it. Like where I work. But just a couple of miles away, my younger boss's neighborhood lost theirs. He's in Mexico this week (gotta stop letting him go on vacation, this always happens when he leaves!) and I met my older boss (his father) at the younger bosses house to help him clean out the freezer. Then we brought all his food back to the office and put it in the freezer there. When younger boss gets back, he's gonna owe me big-time! :)

When we left work, we went to the post office and then to the grocery store. I only needed a couple of things, but they were very busy. Most batteries are sold out, they were out of bread and I noticed that their dog food aisle was getting emptied out. I was afraid that if I waited, they would be completely empty so we braved the crowd today. On the way home, we saw a lot of places where huge trees are just destroyed. It looks like a war zone, and it sounded like one yesterday as well. A lot of people are still without power, ours came on mid-afternoon. There are still trees in the road all over the place. We also saw a couple of telephone poles and electrical line damage. Our lines are buried, but they are fed by above ground lines.

The first thing we did when we got home was start the dishwasher!

If anyone needs to talk to us, we are unable to call out if it's long distance. We didn't buy the long distance plan on our home phone because they didn't have any that were very good. So we got unlimited long distance on the cell phone. Which is great - until the power hasn't been restored to all the towers yet! I was able to use my phone at work, but I don't have any service at home. Hopefully, that will be fixed soon.

We've heard from our tenant. The tree in the front yard split, she said that it's pretty bad and the tree might not survive. She said that some of the limbs landed on the front porch but not on the house itself, but that the fence has a dent in it from part of the tree. We were hoping that it would survive, we planted that tree when we moved in to that house and we've always called it Otter's Tree. But at least it didn't damage the house and the tenant is safe. Bill's going over there after work tomorrow to check on it. He's taking the chainsaw. I guess we'll add it to the firewood that's currently all over the front yard!

There is also no school tomorrow, so Otter will go to work with me. Bill called in yesterday, then they were given the day off today.

And we've also noticed that the dogs are smarter than we give them credit for. They only go outside when they have to, and they run back inside as quickly as they can. And then they go to sleep!