Roughing it at Home

So we had an ice storm that came in on Thursday. This is when it rains because the air at high altitude is warm and then as it falls it cools and freezes on whatever it lands on. Well this one was a bad one and our power (heat and hot water) was out for nearly 24 hours because of tree branches breaking and falling on power lines . We are grateful for the power we have now because we were told by the governor, who declared a state of emergency to Central Mass, that it could take as long as Monday to get our power. We got firewood, hunkered down in the living room, used our grill and coleman stove to cook dinner, and prepared for a cold night--it is supposed to be in the teens tonight. We're grateful for everyones prayers.

Lollipop antenae, imagine this on every single tree branch.
The chunks on the top were from the tree above. You will see later.
My windows look a little cold.
This is our rododendron in our front yard.
This is the power line in our front yard.
It is a little abnormal.
A longer view from the front yard.
All the tree branches that fell. You can see the icicles off the hanging branch.

I moved my car behind Becky's because a branch at the top of the picture was hanging directly above my car. I am glad it didn't fall since my car has been totalled once since coming here.

Another view. The icicles on the power lines are crazy.

What an adventure.

Addendum to post. Sunday, December 14: Aftermath of an ice storm:

I wanted to remember some of these things we've experienced after the storm, because it's all been just crazy. This is for my own memory as much as anything else, so sorry for lengthening the post! Here's my list:

1) All of Massachusetts is still in a state of emergency, 3 days out from the storm

2) Many areas, including in Gardner where our church is, are still without power or heat. Church is cancelled today. Gardner doesn't expect to have power restored until Wednesday or Thursday of this next week. A week without heat. It was in the teens last night.

3) You can't get a hotel room anywhere within 60 miles or more.

4) The local schools are serving as shelters for those who don't have anywhere warm to go.

5) Trying to find any kind of supplies has been tough--people have gone crazy. I went to Home Depot the day after the storm to try and find some type of heater, and it was nuts. They had sold out of generators in 10 minutes when they opened at 6 AM. They were completely out of D batteries (for flashlights), chainsaws (broken trees), and quickly running out of other things.

6) I had to go to 3 gas stations to fill up our car Saturday. We had half of a tank, but wanted to fill up just in case we needed to get out of here and try and find a hotel. The first station I went to was completely out of gas. The second station had lines so long it was blocking the street. The third one finally worked out.

7) The power is on in our town, so we went to Walmart to get some groceries. As I walked back to the dairy cases, it was eerie. ALL of the dairy cases, meat cases, many of the freezer cases were EMPTY. The only thing they had was a little bit of milk. According to an employee I talked to, everything had gone bad with no power to refrigerate it. They had to throw it all out. What a waste!

8) There are still branches down everywhere. The cleanup will probably take weeks or months. The day after the storm there were downed branches on the highways, on people's houses, and on the power lines.

9) What a lesson about BEING PREPARED! We were somewhat prepared: we had plenty of food--we could have probably easily gotten through several weeks without even really breaking into our food storage. We have camping lanterns that we could use for light (the battery-powered ones), and working flashlights. Both our cars had some gas. We had a camping stove and our grill that we could cook on--warm food tasted great. The only thing we really lacked immediately was heat. We were able to purchase firewood, but it didn't warm the house much, and wouldn't have lasted too long. I went on Cabelas.com yesterday and ordered a Mr. Heater Big Buddy propane heater that's safe to use inside. If we have another emergency like this, it will be $120 extremely well spent!

Take a lesson from Massachusetts! -Becky