The Snow & Ice Storm Hit Us Hard

About 10 minutes after I posted this today, my power went out again and it is still out three hours later. They now have a standard text that says everybody will have their power restored by Friday, although many of those people will have it before then. 

For the first time in a long time the storms in the forecast included us where there was hope it would stay south of the Ohio River and North of I-64. It did not and it was worse than I expected. This photo was taken at 8:38pm Sunday night ... we had lost all power eight minutes earlier. It turned out to be an experience and a new list of things I need the next time it happens.

We piled into the bedroom a little later 9:30pm Sunday night when I realized this storm must be much worse than I had seen here locally in the neighborhood. I find out by Tuesday morning after I got my power back around 11:40am, the area had not had a storm like this in 15 years. The colder days were ahead and CenterPoint Energy was reporting on their website of "outages" ... out of 94,750 customers in just one county that I live in, 59,xxx of us did not have power.

As I downloaded the photos for this post they were looking like a setting was off and everything was coming out in black and white ... but when I just looked out my patio door a few minutes ago ... it looked just like this ... black and white.

Seeing all that ice so early Monday morning I was really concerned about what might happen later but luckily there was no wind to speak off. Just a few minutes after taking these photos of the top of the trees, I found just how lucking I had been while we slept Sunday night. No, I never heard anything like the photos show.

All of those leaves and limbs are covered in ice.

Top two are utility electrical lines, then Spectrum Internet, AT&T Fiber and the Astound cable is so low that it didn't make the photo.

So basically I am feeling pretty good as far as any damage to my yard or fence. I knew the power issue started across the street Sunday night as a tree fell across their lines. The fire department was out before I called it a night, shining bright lights up into their tall trees that I viewed from the living room window. One of the neighbors had the power lines that go into the house on the roof ... were laying flat on his roof due to the tree falling in back of them. Right now that side of the street was still without power.

The first bit of luck I noticed was that tree that had fallen, missing the fence and any cables. That bundle of tree limbs are right on the AT&T box that holds their splice they did last July and never came back to hang it up on their cable. I was told by their tech in person just a few weeks ago, they would be out to get that off the ground and hung on December 16. IF they ever show up ... I am not moving anything, I am not cutting anything, if fact I am not doing a damn thing ... since I have waited since the end of July for them to do what they said they would do plus multiple calls ending with a new priority work order number. 

The damage didn't end there.

As my eyes moved along the fence line at ground level, I see this to the left of me. It looked like some of that beautiful oak tree that my neighbor will not cut down because it is the last one out of five they have cut down over the years, had fallen parallel to my fence.

Not ten feet in front of that is a bigger limb from the same tree, closer to her barn shed than it is to my fence. Lucky again. .... but .... I had not seen the best yet.

I walked into my bedroom and raised the blinds to see what that side of the house looked like. I wasn't going outside, it was too cold. Now that is major .. mostly in my yard but came from her tree. Not until later did I get a better view of that same tree.

This does not look like it was the big limb that was trimmed by the tree service a couple of years ago. She was kind enough to ask me if there were any limbs I wanted trimmed from her tree when the tree service was there. There was one because most of it was hanging over my roof. So that limb was trimmed back, BUT I don't think this is the limb they trimmed. Again lucky ... missed the fence and my house.

So the crew and I were in for a totally different experience Monday morning. Temps in the 20s outside, inside was 56° when we got up on Monday and no idea when the power might be turned back on. NO power meant NO heat. Yet the CenterPoint Energy website that kept updating how many in the area without power., work was being done around the clock!!! I did not realize how bad it was until I saw a local tv channel's website ... I would be surprised if we had power back on within a week.

That first day we spent a lot of time in the living room. It had become so cold I had a wool sock hat on, some North Face mid winter temperatures gloves and my Columbia Sportswear Parka that is lined with a down jacket. That was worn over a sleeveless fleece, that was over a long sleeve pullover and two thermal shirts. It. was. cold !!!

When I told Walter we were in a screwed up situation and it might be a week before we would have heat again ... you can see he was skeptical at first. By that ear position he isn't sure he heard me correctly. The blank stare says it all. LOL

Later that night when we moved to even a colder room, but the recliner felt better to me still bundled up as I those some clothes and jackets. That heavy wool blanket was given to me by Ed Frey. Some of you might know him. Walter is wondering how this loss of power is going to be an issue to his demands for filtered drinking water. There was no problem there.

With this look and a gruff half bark, he lets me know multiple times per day if his water bowl needs filled. I will say around 3am last night as I got up for a bathroom trip, I reached down to pet him while he slept and he was shivering ... that is how cold the house had become last night. At 6:30am and all of us up after they slept great and I hardly slept at all ... the inside temp was 47°.

It was time where I might have to analyze a new strategy.

I had no plans to go anywhere until later this week. I had made my food run earlier Sunday morning in prepping for this storm but I had made a huge mistake that I will get to at the end of this post. The neighbor had come over to ask me if he could park his truck in my drive so the kids could back up their cars out from under that tree on the left. Little did we know standing there talking what we were in for nine hours later.

 

Monday morning the porch bulldog didn't show a lot of snow. By today he was almost invisible buried in new snow. 

Yesterday to conserve my iPhone battery I shut down all the apps manually and then went into Battery and went to 'Low Power Mode" ... I closed all the apps on my Apple Watch ... I figured I had no more than a day left for each of them before the battery ran down.

I didn't sleep well Monday night. Laying there in bed thinking while Walter and Watson filled the room with their snoring, I was actually mad a little past midnight. I could feel cold air move over my face while I was buried under two blankets and a sleeping bag spread out on top. Plus, I was wearing my clothes, minus the parka. 

I knew then my plan to do nothing for a heat source if something like this happened was going to have to change. Would it be a new generator and a small electric space heater? Or a couple of Mr Buddy's RV heaters that ran on propane?

As far as food I totally messed up. I didn't buy "dry" food to eat since I would not have a fridge nor a stove. The food I had bought required a stove, maybe an oven and a microwave. I did not buy raw fruit and veggies because I had not been eating them when I bought them lately. So an instant thought, I'd get up and buy a two burner Coleman camping stove and ... plus dry and canned food as if I as stranded somewhere.

I get up and as I am brushing my teeth ... I admit ... I am freezing cold. After a poor night of sleep, very little eaten so far and feeling it 10° cooler inside today than yesterday I honesty didn't think I could make it another day like I went through yesterday. We headed to the bedroom for the night at 6:30pm last night ... just to get worm. All that body heat from five dogs warmed the room up 6° with the door closed.

In the garage I pulled the rope so I could open my electric garage door manually. I shoveled only the ice away from where it had built up at the base of the door. With a few scrapes with the shovel I could see the driveway was solid ice but the snow wasn't that deep ... my car could make it to the cleaned street with no problem.

I get to the Donut Bank for my first cup of coffee in two days, some great pastry and a place I can charge my Apple Watch and iPhone while I eat. I park the car take a step toward the door and realize I didn't bring my billfold. It was a short three mile drive back home. Along the way I could see all the damage from fallen trees and limbs. A LOT of whole trees were blown over.

I return, sitting at the front window of the building so I can see if the pet food store is going to be open today. The hounds and dogs needed food and their delivery trucks were due last Friday before the storm. With both devices charged, 80# of dog food bought and it's back home because Costco does not open until 10am. It was only 8:45 when I left the dog food store.

So I am still thinking on what to do. I call my friend up north to discuss options. I had come to the point of not wanting to freeze anymore plus the hounds and dogs needed to be warmer tonight as the temps drop to 14°. It actually felt warmer outside than it did inside the house. 

I hang up from the call, putting my parka back on and telling "Ava Crate" because I am leaving for a while to get to the other side of the city plus stop at Lowe's or Home Depot. I was coming home with some kind of heat source one way or another. 

Ava's in her crate, Walter is chewing his REI bone like a madman as he always does when I am leaving .... then ... 

.... I hear ... my furnace kick on ... was that the furnace or my gas water heater making a weird noise??? I flick the light switch in the hallway and the lights come on ... WE HAD OUR POWER BACK JUST IN TIME !!!!

We can discuss the options, the pros the cons and suggestions for when something like this happens again ... but this is about all I can blog about today. I am drained mentally. 

One thing in those two short days, or 39 hours of no power ... I CAN get by with no tv and no internet. LOL

All the hounds and dogs are sleeping, mid afternoon, enjoying that hot air coming out of the vents. 

All of us are much better here in "the tropics" of Southern Indiana.