March 2 Ice Storm

March 3, 2014

This is the ice storm that hit the Sunday afternoon after Kendra's birthday party.

Within 16 hours, 

at Kendra's March 1, 6pm party, the temps were muggy and into the 70's,

by Noon, the next day the temps were dropping into the 40's and heavy icy precipitation was falling,

by 4pm, the temps were below freezing, and there was a rapidly accumulating layer of ice forming on all surfaces.

at 6pm, we lost our electricity.

This is not a common problem in our area ... but our trees are still weak

from the drought and fires a couple of years ago.

And so most of our county was without electricity ... as well as many surrounding areas.

We went to bed early, buried under tons of blankets.

Tim and Kendra woke and headed to work at 6:30am.

At 9am, friends called and convinced us to pack and come to their house.

Our bedroom was still 40 degrees, but the rest of the house was 29.  

Outside was 18 degrees.

We were also without water,

and had used most of our backup supply .... 

since Tim had accidently ran all of the hot water into the tub, 

and had to bring it down to wash dishes.  

Nobody thought to fill the tub a second time.

We packed as fast as we could.

We were picked up shortly after Noon.

Tim ended up working a split shift - it was WAY too cold to nap at home!

And after getting up early - he closed (Kendra was with him!) that night.

And the funny thing ... at 6pm that night, our friends lost their lights as well.

Fortunately, they are on a high priority line, and we were back up in 45 minutes.

Tuesday

Tim and Kendra went to his parents house to sleep.

Grandpa took Kendra to work.

Our friends took Vannan and Aunt Viv to do chores and pick up several missed items.

They also collected Kendra.

AND

we got our electricity back!

Of course the house was below 20 degrees when the heater popped on.

So,

we decided to spend another night away from home.

Tim closed that night, and by the time he came home at 3am,

the house was feeling fairly comfortable.

We lost a few plants, all our fish, and some of the produce ...

the frig actually WARMED UP!!! and some of the stuff got too warm.

The biscuits popped out of their cases!

We were able to salvage almost everything creatively.

(We didn't eat Joel's fish ... and if we can get the tank filtration system cleaned/ replaced, we will consider getting him another fish).

Anyway ... 

It was interesting.

On Friday that same week,

we went to the annual library book sale, 

I came home with 79 new kids books.

And Aunt Viv, Kendra, and Vannan each had a box of books as well.

In all, we brought home around 200 new books.

I think I need more TALL bookshelves.

And this week,

the electric company came and removed 2 of our cedar trees.

Anyone want to BUY some of our cedar logs?

I think we've got 6 ... though they might have cut up the two fresh ones yesterday.

We usually park just beyond this ...where I'm standing.

All of those limbs usually point UP.

You can usually see the road through there.

It's ALL ice. We did get some snow on Monday ... tiny little flakes.

Our stepping stones are covered with 1/4 inch of ice.

Icicles on the line. Branches down in the yard.

It was hard walking, until I realized that if you stomped each step, you could break through the ice.

The yellow is pollen.

This is one of the two trees that the electric company removed. The top has to be trimmed every year to keep it out of the wire above it. Normally, a 6ft person can walk under those limbs touching the ground.

This tree was heavily damaged. It use to look a lot like a Christmas tree. It lost a LOT of limbs.

This is the other tree that they removed - also because it grows into the line. Aunt Viv couldn't move her car because the limbs were down around that side. Friends normally park where those limbs are on the ground.

My feet were FREEZING by this point. So I didn't take more pictures.
I'll try to catch Kt's camera though, because Vannan borrowed it to take a TON more the next day.