Ice Storm!

[sundial]

Mudmucker, I hope you get your power turned on soon. It's no fun freezing in your own home. Did you have any structural damage?

[mudmucker]

Thank you very much. Fortunately no structural damage and no trees damaged the house, or conduits weren't ripped off from the house. There is one wire down on my property but I traced it back and it is only the cable. There will be alot of cleanup on the property though, downed trees and branches everywhere. No, it's no fun being cold in your house. But as I say, it could always be worse. But as I said earlier, new tricks to add to the bag and I am thinking of new and additional contingency plans for times such as this. No harm done....

[OakLeaf]

Mudmucker, glad you're OK. Wanna come show me how to wire my pump into the generator?

[mudmucker]

Mudmucker, glad you're OK. Wanna come show me how to wire my pump into the generator?

Thank you. I am so excited about this newly acquired knowledge I would love to share it with you

[bambu101]

This is what it looked like here in Western Mass:

http://www.masslive.com/news/index.s...tegory=Weather

We have generators and kerosene heaters, and managed to stay warm, take showers, cook hot meals, and watch TV. We came home from getting more gasoline yesterday to find our neighbor scooping water from the brook to flush his toilets with (he had a woodstove, but no water). Some woman in town also nearly died from carbon monoxide poisoning after running their generator in an attached garage with the door closed.

The ice is melting today with warmer temperatures, but the clean up is going to be a long process. The National Guard has been activated to help out.

I have lived in New England for 54 years, and this is the worst ice storm ever. It literally looked like a bomb went off.

[mudmucker]

This is what it looked like here in Western Mass:

http://www.masslive.com/news/index.s...tegory=Weather

We have generators and kerosene heaters, and managed to stay warm, take showers, cook hot meals, and watch TV.

Wow. That's great. Excellent that you have the heat and hot water. Looks like temps will be somewhat reasonable the rest of the week.

I'm pilfering WiFi out of the building here at work from my personal laptop so I have access to TE.

I grew up in Greenfield. Where in western MA are you? Yes, I've been in New England for 48.5 yrs and I agree, worst I've seen.

[bambu101]

I am in Blandford, which is on the slopes of the Berkshires, and also referred to as the Hilltowns. We are at around 1400 feet in elevation, which means more snow and ice. The other towns in the valley got only rain.

[bmccasland]

Mudmucker - I've been away for the weekend, and see you've been in all sorts of trouble! I hope you get electricity restored soon. Not sure if I prefer loosing power in the summer or the winter. Sort of like picking your evil. So here's hoping you're nice and toasty warm very soon.

[sundial]

Beth, are you guys getting any freezing rain or sleet?

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

I hope those of you still without power are ok. I know the temps warmed up today a lot here in NY near Albany. The ice here has melted off the trees. Many thousands of people in NY and MA and other places in the NE are STILL without power but thankfully they will not freeze today.
Tonight is supposed to be rainy, but by tomorrow temps are plummeting well below freezing again.

It's been awful for so many people....I feel lucky considering what others are still going through.
DH wants to buy a generator after this is over, needless to say.

[mudmucker]

Bambu - yup that's certainly western Mass. I am at 1200 feet and it's a big difference between rain and snow for MA.

bmccasland - thanks. I think I'd rather lose power in the summer. I get cold easily. But then, I don't live in N.O. either so I might speak differently if I went through that experience down there. Well, the circumstances are imposed so I don't have to choose.

Bleeker St - good you were able to get out of the woods a little earlier but 2.5 days isn't fun nontheless. It got old by noon on Friday...

Jolt, you are in the Worcester Highlands (physiographically) - that's great you didn't get that affected

some things of note:
- for about 2 days the yard was sooo fragrant with green, the evergreen smell of broken trees was heavenly
- the inside isn't that bad either - I've been using fragrant vanilla and lavender pillar soy candles the last 5 days, mmm
- for the first 3 days I kept flicking the light switch on and off everytime I entered a room, and was reminded I needed to flick the flashlight on instead.
- I never owned any Ibex or smartwool items. With the TE pi sale I got ibex and smartwool lightweight and midweight tops, a smartwool midweight half zip and some smartwool bottoms at another store. They are sooo warm, so much warmer than the polypro I have. I have been living in them, so to speak, for the last 5 days. I had just handwashed them all 2 days before the storm hit so they were nice and fresh. Bought them in the nick of time.

[Tuckervill]

I think our schools will be back in session tomorrow. I haven't heard any reports of power outages, but there have been lots and lots of wrecks. My husband said the roads were not icy two miles out of town (towards his work). We managed to get out and get to the store, along with thousands of others (seemed like). The parking spaces were all sheets of ice, but the roads were all worn down. Black ice is a problem, especially when walking. All the concrete around my house is a solid sheet. Otherwise we're just fine. Although it hasn't gotten above 20 degrees, yet, and tomorrow we're expecting more precipitation.

I've been in bed almost all day wearing my wool, trying to keep warm, in my heatless upstairs!

Karen

[Crankin]

Bambu, after riding those hills in Blanford last summer, I can barely imagine what it's like with ice all over them! Glad you kept warm and washed.
There have been many near misses with generators hooked up incorrectly and people almost dying from poisoning. I think there have actually been a couple of deaths.
It was 58 when I got home tonight. This is very weird. The wind is howling, though and it looks like rain, ice, and snow showers for the rest of the week.

[sundial]

Crankin, that's miserable. Tuckervill, pile on a few dogs and it will help.

[Tuckervill]

Yeah, dogs aren't allowed in the bed! Cats make good foot warmers, though.

We dodged the bullet this time. There is snow in Kansas and Missouri to our north, and ice in OK and central AR to our south. Our schools are back in session today, but only in the two northernmost counties.

Karen