Ice Storm!

[Crankin]

Yea, it's true that most people think anything north of NYC is "upstate" NY. But real upstate is pretty far north!
I just got back from dinner and I have come to find out that just 5 miles from my house, almost the whole nearby town is without power. We weren't sure if the restaurant we were going to in Westford had power, but it seemed like they got it on in the business district first. My friends in Acton were without power for like 8 hours yesterday and where I used to live (Boxborough) is still without. I heard my old neighborhood looks pretty bad, with downed lines and trees, pretty much like Mudmucker described.
I feel lucky.

[Jolt]

Yea, it's true that most people think anything north of NYC is "upstate" NY. But real upstate is pretty far north!
I just got back from dinner and I have come to find out that just 5 miles from my house, almost the whole nearby town is without power. We weren't sure if the restaurant we were going to in Westford had power, but it seemed like they got it on in the business district first. My friends in Acton were without power for like 8 hours yesterday and where I used to live (Boxborough) is still without. I heard my old neighborhood looks pretty bad, with downed lines and trees, pretty much like Mudmucker described.
I feel lucky.

I feel lucky too! This section of Worcester didn't get hit too hard. I'm wondering if there will even be power at church tomorrow (in Fitchburg, which apparently got hit pretty hard along with all the other towns in that area). Better dress really warmly... Then I was planning on doing a trail run in the Princeton area but am wondering if it will even be possible to get to the trail! Might have to go to plan B.

[Crankin]

I might postpone that trail run. It might be covered with ice. We wanted to do a local hike today, but I am not sure what the conditions will be, even right by my house. Maybe I'll end up going to Lincoln Woods, just a bit further east.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Hi everyone!

Our area was very badly hit with the ice storm. We were without power for almost 2 1/2 days, and two of those nights dipped down to 15F degrees.
We are lucky that we got our power back during the night last night- others in neighboring villages and back roads may still go until Tuesday without heat or power.

Our house inside only dropped down to 50F, so our single living room fireplace insert stove (which is not designed to heat the whole house) did manage to keep us from freezing. We always figured it would be enough to keep us from freezing, and it passed the test.

We had running water all throughout the event too, because we are hooked up to the village water system which is gravity-fed from the little reservoir up on the hill. Thus, we don't have to depend on electric to run a pump from a well. So we had freezing cold water, -but water nonetheless!....we could flush toilets and had drinking/washing water. This is one big advantage of living on the edge of our little village as opposed to further out in the countryside surrounding us. This was one of the reasons we bought this house- that we would have access to town walking in emergencies and if gas was unobtainable, and would always have village water if electricity failed. The houses only about two houses further out from us are not on village water system, and thus had no running water.

I was also very glad that on Thursday (before the power went out Thurs evening) I was able to both fix a flat tire on my car AND get my kitty Pearl to the vet and get her started on some antibiotics for an infection- she had been getting sick for a few days prior. That would have been bad if she was cold AND getting sicker during all this.

Our other blessing was that there was miraculously power down on Main street during the whole time, so we bundled up several times and hiked the mile to town for big hot breakfasts Fri and Sat morning. That was nice, and we could get the latest 'emergency news' from everyone while in town. There was a state of emergency declared and people were not supposed to be driving unless it was an emergency.

We had lots of food, and we had plenty of lanterns and candles and flashlights. (I am sort of anal when it comes to being prepared, and we had tons of candle lanterns, 30 spare candles for them, several oil lamps, and lots of flashlights and a battery radio, a propane camp stove that could be used out in the yard if needed, and canned and dried food in the basement. We put the fridge contents into coolers and didn't lose any significant food. Since it was below freezing outside, we just put our freezer stuff in a cooler out on the porch and left it there.
Our basement has a pool of water everywhere because the sump pump was without power, but luckily we have a little emergency drain in the floor that was still functioning, so the water never got higher than 1 inch. Other people were not so lucky and had badly flooded basements.
Some of our elderly neighbors got moved out of their homes into relatives' houses or to shelters. We have elderly neighbors on 3 sides of us, but they were all fine and we kept in touch.

We closed off the upstairs so as not to waste precious heat from the woodstove, wore lots of wool, gloves and hats in the house, and piled blankets and kitties on the bed at night. During the day the cats liked hanging out in front of the stove. I read a book by lantern light both nights.
It wasn't much fun feeling cold all the time and knowing how we were slowly getting further and further behind in work, but it could have been way worse like it has been for many other people. (trees falling on their houses and cars, and one older friend of ours fell on the ice in town on thursday and broke his hip AND his wrist.)

The worst for us personally is that our beautiful 45 year old HUGE white pine in the back yard was devastated. It was about 50-60 feet tall and gorgeous, and at least 2/3 of all its large horizontal branches are broken off and it now looks like a sad tall splintered toothpick with some remaining smaller branches decorating it. We feel heartsick about it, but we'll have to wait til all this ice has melted before we even access what to do about it. It was so beautiful.

We are very grateful for a warm house now, hot showers, etc. This kind of thing teaches you not to take electricity for granted. This was a TERRIBLE ice storm, and will take WEEKS of cleanup and repair for many people. I read that power crews came in from as far away as Michigan (!!) to help get the power lines up again, working all throughout the 3 nights in 15F degree temps.
They are all still working like mad as many are still without heat or power.

So, we are back up and running, a grateful.

[pardes]

Wow, Lisa!!!! What a story. I'm so glad you were prepared. The rain that lasted for two days here in Delaware was just rain and then it headed your way. Few people here plan for such a thing as a major ice storm but ice is no respector of persons and we should be prepared.

Yes, thank goodness you got Pearl to the vet before the storm and I'm glad it turned out to be an adventure for you rather than a disaster.

[Biciclista]

Glad to see you're back, Lisa!

[sundial]

Lisa, bless your heart. I'm thankful your house was not damaged and that you, with your pioneering spirit, prevailed. Ice storms are not fun! Our area was hit with one in '94 and people were without electricity for up to a month!

Our region is going to be hit with rain/ice come Monday night through Tuesday. Looks like I'll be heading to the store to get stocked up on goods today.

[eclectic]

Glad to hear things are getting up and running again. Ice storms are NOT good things - so much damage.

Many Kudos and thanks to all the linemen and women for their long hours in horrible conditions to get the power up again.

We are currently in the thoes of a blizzard. I will take a blizzard over ice any day.
- We have heat
- we have power
-we have internet
- No one has to go out in it (I don't know if the plows are out anymore or not - often they pull them until things settle down)
- If travel is absolutely necessary (medical, police) - snowmobiles are readily available

Yup - I will take a blizzard over ice any day.
Glad to hear you were able to get kitty taken care of. Best of luck on the cleanup

[Tuckervill]

Glad you are okay, Lisa!

My house doesn't have a fireplace anymore, but I have a kerosene heater, and our workshop has a big wood stove in it, and we could move out there if necessary. So far it hasn't been necessary in past ice storms.

But, my ex-husband and I lived with a wood stove as our only form of heat, and on a well, which needs electricity. The power went off frequently for random reasons, not the least of which was cold weather. We were warm and we could cook with propane, but had no water. I'd rather go without food, because I can always build a fire or eat cold food. Having water makes black-outs tolerable, even adventurous!

Karen

[Jolt]

I might postpone that trail run. It might be covered with ice. We wanted to do a local hike today, but I am not sure what the conditions will be, even right by my house. Maybe I'll end up going to Lincoln Woods, just a bit further east.

I attempted it but didn't get very far because there were trees and branches down everywhere! It was more climbing over stuff than running and it was hard to even see the next trail marker at times because things were piled so high. The ice on the trail was the least of the problems (there were chunks of ice from the trees, but not solid sheets of ice).

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

We thought of going into the woods to take some pictures of the beautiful ice formations....but it's way too dangerous to go in the woods! Big tree limbs are still occasionally falling. you can hear them fall every time the wind kicks up.

The night of the storm, thursday night, we lay in bed with no power and no light. It was pitch black outside and ice and frozen rain was coming down heavily. This was so scary- you could hear big trees cracking and falling literally every 60 seconds or so, from various directions and at varying distances. Big trees crashing down....crack crack crack....all night sounding like rifles and guns being shot, echoing through the night. Every once in a while our giant pine near the house would drop another limb and we lay there afraid the whole 60 ft tree would crash down onto the house while we lay there. What seemed like flashes of lightning every 10 minutes were actually electric lines being torn down by the trees and flashing as they hit the ground, lighting up the sky. It was a very scary and surreal night.
The next morning when we went outside you could still hear trees coming down every 5 minutes or so from somewhere- all day long on Friday. Poor trees!

[Tuckervill]

That is quite frightening. Sounds like a war zone! And then when the transformers on the power poles blow up, yikes!

I try not to stay in my house when there is heavy ice. We have a huge oak tree about 20 yards from the house, and the neighbor had 2 on her lot between our houses.

Stay safe, ya'll!

Karen

[redrhodie]

Wow, I'm glad you're okay.

Note to self..you are completely unprepaired. Who gets the single serving of oatmeal which is about the only thing in the cupboard? Good thing there's cat food.

Off to the store.