Since I'm not getting any work done today I thought i might share what we are having to deal with here in OK today. 1/4 million without power. Luckily ours is still on.
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Scott, my mom works in Shawnee and she called me a little while ago from her cell phone to let me know that they were shutting down her plant and sending everyone home because they had no power and OG&E didn't even know at this point when they'd get to it! She's worked there 25 years, and the last time they shut down I was still in grade school, and they got tornado damage, flooding, and a power outage before they let people go home. From what she said, OKC is worse that farther east... My cousins in OKC didn't go into work today. Mom had a big branch fall on her van this morning, but she couldn't tell how much (if any) damage there was because it was still dark. The ice is beautiful, but really dangerous... if we were to have an ice storm like that here, we'd lose all of our maple trees... the little we did get last week brought branches down all over the yard, but thankfully none of the three big maples split... those darn things are so brittle they can't take anything at all. Hope y'all thaw soon and that you don't lose power!
Well, my mom called a little bit ago again, and when she got home, she couldn't get in her gate because of more downed limbs... she thinks the power is off because there is another trree on the power line from the road, and she said even if she could get in the gate, she wasn't sure that she could get in the front door because of branches across there... so, what does she do? She pulls out her camera and starts taking pictures. She was also telling me that her roof was leaking in the kitchen, but she couldn't tell if it was because of a tree down or something else because she couldn't get out the back door this morning for the tree branches down.
That's some pretty trees you've got there ::)
We get ice storms here fairly often. There are few things more beautiful or as dangerous.
I got caught in a bad one in the mountains once. I was on foot and about 7 miles from my car. It was like a war zone with the trees popping and the branches falling.
Up in NW Washington state, we used to get a lot of ice storms - they are really beautiful but no fun to be out in
My mom is still without electricity, and so she went over to spend the night with my grandma, and then in the wee hours this morning a tree fell on the power line near grandma's house and knocked out her power. However, the electricity was back on at the plant today, and mom did have to go to work. Pretty much their whole town is without power... Thankfully they all have natural gas heat. Mom said everyone looked pretty scary at work this morning from getting ready (and even putting makeup on) by flashlight or candle light. Here we're getting pretty heavy freezing rain this morning, and my husband still hasn't let me know if he made it to work or not...he was supposed to call or email when he got there, but so far, not a word. :-\ He'll probably end up having to turn around and come back as they were shutting down pretty much everything between here and Milwaukee, but he didn't want to have to go into work this Saturday.
We got a break today and the ice melted but it rained all day. Lots of folks still without power all around here. We still have ours though. I've got a big mess to clean up after this storm with several trees down and tons of branches.
We had a silver thaw in Oregon once -- I was about 16 driving in it -- we watched the state highway sander truck slide off the road but we made it -- in a Volkswagen bus.
I traveled many snow and ice covered roads in a VW bug ... That was a hard car to beat in any weather.
So did I, Williet! :) The road I lived on just about went straight up 30-40 ft when you 1st turned on to it. My little VW bug with studded tires would make it right up that hill with nary a pause - all those pickups & cars would be parked down below on the side of the road rofl
We'd have the ice storms & silver thaws several times a winter, also black ice... but never had any problem. ;D
We had a VW Westfalia for a number of years. I had 2 main complaints; [1] heat (or the lack of it in winter... it did not have the gas heater) [2] highway performance, especially in hilly/mountainous terrain. But I do have to agree that it had great traction.
Shortcoming [1] was corrected with the installation of a factory gas heater and a propane fueled Olympic brand catalytic heater (the best of the genre out there I feel) for cool/cold weather camping. Shortcoming [2] cost a lot more to remedy but brought great satisfaction; a 1978 Porsche 3L engine, 180 hp.
Yup -- it was a slug. But I learned lots of gear shifting in that thing.