We survived the ice storm, our electricity is back now

[catmandu57]

Nothing makes the sound in the night that ice covered branches breaking from trees make, let me tell you it's not a sound that you want to hear. We woke up at midnight Tuesday morning and the lights were still on then, after a nervous hour waiting for the piss elm to come crashing onto the roof, I gave up made coffee and logged onto the weather sites to see what was happening.
After looking at the radar and seeing nothing but ice for hundreds of miles, the lights blinked, went out and that was that.

We were lucky though, we have a wall furnace with a mechanical thermostat, so we never lost heat and that is something to be thankful for. There are emergency shelters setup right now, my mil is at one they have no heat or electricity and we're babysitting their dog.

It looks really nasty here, tree limbs are everywhere, ice is covering everything and in nine months we'll have a baby boom.






It's much worse than it looks here.

[Selatius]

1. Bush cut heating oil subsidies to millions of people earlier this year. 300+ million dollars worth.

http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071212/NEWS04/712120311

Virtually everyone is shuddering this year at the high cost of home heating oil.

Worst off are low-income families, who face heating-oil prices anywhere from 10 to 22 percent higher than last winter with less assistance from the federally funded Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. While the Bush administration falls down on the nation's moral responsibility to care for its poor and vulnerable, a few local souls are striving to make sure no families go without heat this winter.

Pocono Healthy Communities Alliance is sponsoring a meeting Thursday to talk about the home heating crisis, inviting social service agencies, food pantries, churches and other interested parties to brainstorm about how to keep Monroe County warm. Already, the alliance reports, some people have run out of fuel. LIHEAP, sadly, is providing less fuel than the program has in the past.

Astonishingly, President Bush has vetoed a compromise appropriations bill that would have boosted this year's LIHEAP allocation by $250 million to $2.4 billion. He blamed "pork" in other parts of the multi-faceted bill. The LIHEAP portion would have assisted a scant 16 percent of the roughly 38 million poor American households eligible for the heating assistance. But it was too much for the president. He proposes cutting LIHEAP by $379 million.

[NMDemDist2]

2. welcome back and stay safe and warm

:hug:

[hedgehog]

3. Be careful out there and watch for the wires and branches that will come down later.

Take a good look at your roof; my parents found damage to theirs weeks after the storm when it began to leak. The tree had fallen against the roof , then fell off before anyone realized where it had first landed.

Here's some more advice from last night:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2453425&mesg_id=2453425

[gratuitous]

7. Ditto from the sopping wet Pacific Northwest

And if you can safely do so, make sure the storm drains on your block are clear of debris and stuff. When the melting starts, a lot of water is going to be headed toward every drain.

[madokie]

4. good to see you all are making it ok, thats what we looked like a couple days ago

more on the way for us here. so far we've only lost power three times for only a couple three hours each time. we're all gen'ed up so we have that covered, getting ready to head out to get another ton of wood pellets just in case.

[catmandu57]

12. You guys got this stuff first

I was wondering how everyone down that way was making out.

[madokie]

17. I tried to head if off but there was just too much for me to handle ;-)

in all of that we got 3 and 3/4 inch of rain so its sloppy here now. I have a portable welder generator so we have electricity covered and the wife works less than a mile from here and low speed roads so we have it pretty good but for some around here its been a bitch. what it does do though is give me a whole new appreciation of what I most times take for granted. the services we have electric and water

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. We had a bad ice storm in '98 and were without power for 10 days, so I really feel your pain!

You are really luck you were able to keep your heat. :)

[aquart]

9. Ten days!

[GreenPartyVoter]

13. Yep. No heat except for a little kerosene heater, no running water, hubby was sick with

food poisoning for half of it, and I was 8 months preggers and had influenza.

It sucked at the time but makes for a great story now. LOL

[aquart]

6. Glad you're okay.

What is a "piss elm"?

[catmandu57]

15. It's an Elm tree

but not much more than a trash tree, about the only thing they're good for is taking up the carbon and putting out oxygen. They're weak and full of water, constantly dropping branches, if it hadn't been for the green effect I'd would have had it cut down years ago, I have a good reason to get rid of it now, it's totally trashed, it's the one you can see out of the back door. The other picture is out of our front, that's Pa's behemoth in the picture.

[Arkansas Granny]

19. It's amazing how quickly the trees can come back after a storm

like that. We had an ice storm here several years ago and it looked like every tree for miles around was damaged to some extent. Now, when the leaves are all gone, you can still see some lingering damage in the form of stubs from broken limbs, but most of the tress have filled in the gaps left by the missing branches with new growth.

[pacalo]

8. So sorry about your situation, cat.

And I've been disappointed that my area has had mostly seasonally warm, humid weather. :eyes:

I hope you thaw out soon, & take care. :hug:

[catmandu57]

10. We really are better off than most people

It was a relatively short time to go without power and we had heat and a phone. Many people are still without heat and power, all the new houses built here I'm sure have electric controlled furnaces, the only real pain in the bum was having to eat cold food.

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. I am so glad you are okay!

I was worried about you guys, knowing how close you are to St Joe.

:hi:

[catmandu57]

16. We were watching traffic for entertainment last night

Hoping that we would see a utility truck, I had the portable radio on listening to national propaganda and worn out classic rock songs when we saw a news truck going down the street action news whoever that is.

[proud2BlibKansan]

20. My power is now out

I am at work and my kids just called to tell me we have no power.

[murielm99]

14. That looks like my yard.

We had our power blip out about three times, but it always came back. Some people were not so lucky.

It is sunny and bright today, and the roads are clear.

I hope some of the ice melts off the branches, but it is still below freezing here. We are supposed to get snow tonight. That will not be fun, on top of the ice.

[applegrove]

18. Glad you guys are okay. I was in the Ontario/Quebec icestorm of ten years

ago and I know how surreal a lengthy icestorm can be.