Ice Disaster 2007

Those of you who read my blog on a regular basis know where I am from. I was part of the crazy ice storm this week that hit so hard in Oklahoma. I still can't get over the devastation to the area of town where I grew up. It was rich with old trees, but now there are a lot fewer.




My parents lost power on Sunday (as did 12,000 others), so they came to stay with me. I lost power the next day at 5 AM - along with 500,000 other electric customers in OK. My mom took some pictures along the way, so I'll include some of them here.

You can see the icicles on the bench. This was day one. sort of bad. We had no idea how bad it could get



This is a dogwood from their front yard that has lasted despite all odds....


We decided to stay at my place anyway, because it was smaller and easier to heat with a fireplace. The first night was an adventure. We had firewood and lots of flashlights and batteries. We played two rounds of Trivial Pursuit and actually enjoyed ourselves, sort of. The weirdest part about the whole storm was that the roads never got icy. We were able to go over and get more wood from Mom & Dad's and check on their house. Each day the storm damage got worse.


Here are some pics from Monday.... You can tell the ice is thicker on the bench in this one.






The icicles on the table were really long because it has a metal edge to it.




This is looking in between the neighbors' house and theirs. Notice the swingset in the foreground. It is made of galvanized pipe that was welded together. We have always joked about that swingset. That it could be a deerhanging station, but we have never gotten around to getting rid of it. That'll be significant just one day later.


While we were there, we dragged branches out of the driveway and scraped ice off the cars. Then we moved the cars to the middle of their cul-de-sac, in an effort to minimize damage potential, becaue Mom & Dad's driveway is under a huge tree. It was a good thing we did, because less than 5 minutes after we moved the cars, a branch as long as the van fell right where it had been parked.


I had to work Tuesday, so I went in at noon and they went to check on the house. The neighborhood was shocking really.... But they weren't prepared for the back yard.







The neighbors huge tree had fallen over in the night. It's a hackberry and the top of it was literally scraping the back wall of their house. The berries even left a smudge on the new paint job. But it didn't take the back off of the house like it could have. Why not, you ask? Because it was stopped by the galvanized pipe swingset, which did sustain some damage. You can sort of see the swingset in under the tree.


And this is their neighbors' carport (on the other side of their house from the tree pictured above). The car is still inside.




By Tuesday we decided to get Mom & Dad a generator, because we didn't expect their power to be on for another week (PSO, the electric company, was telling us Tuesday, Dec 18th, 11:59PM). It pays to work at the Big Orange Box, in this case. I heard that a truckload of generators was coming in at any time, and just kept calling in. We were even willing to go next door to the guys in blue, but their store was empty. As I drove by our store about 9PM, I noticed a truck in the loading bay. We don't get deliveries that late, so we stopped in and sure enough. Generators. Hallelujah!!! We got the first one off the truck. By then we just stuck it in their van and went home to try and get warm by my fireplace.

Wednesday morning we went over to the house and my dad's surrogate son (the guy would be my dad's son if he had one, I swear) came over to help hook up the generator and brought his sons and wife and a chainsaw. We spent a significant amount of time just stacking up debris in the front yard, as well as helping the neighbor create a path to their front door.

While I would never recommend what they did (Uh, basically they were hotwiring the generator to the house) they were able to get heat and refrigeration on after only a few minor modifications to the home's wiring system.... WE HAD HEAT!! It felt like a miracle, truly. Then I swung back by my house (after dropping off #1 son) and, lo and behold, I had electricity (after a few false starts) by about 8PM that night. The decision was easy - pack up the generator in the garage, and come back over and stay with me.


By Friday, my cousin (who still doesn't have power) came over with a chainsaw and got to work on the tree in the back yard. He did it under the guise of getting firewood later, but I know it is just because he is basically a good guy and wanted to help out. I pulled as much as I could to the woodpile and the smallest branches to the front yard. We can get all the way around the house now....


The good news is that Saturday my parents got their power on. We are all kinds of happy in our own warm places, and today the temp is up to about 50 degrees.


There is so much more that happened but suffice it to say, I am glad that it is over with, and I am thankful that my family and friends are safe for now. Below is a link to the Kodak Gallery Album that my mom put together. The pics are better there, but I couldn't make them bigger here. Ah, technology.