Ice?

lol Nada! Ya know, I was wondering about that hill of yours last night....all of those twists and turns and dips....yikes!

We're finally melting over here, slowly. I went on to work about 6:15 am this morning, and the overpasses were open, but still just a wee bit scary to drive thru. Especially in the dark with black ice. I'm really, really hoping that my lizard pal made it thru ok. I haven't seen him today...but it was still chilly during the day here. If I do see him again, I may catch em' and give him a big ole sloppy kiss, lipstick and all, lol..... (what? he's lived on my front porch for about a year, lol) I'm, errrr...rather attached to the little guy, lol.. :)

Here he is before the storm hit. If only we had known what was coming! :o
Melanie

I'm back. What a disaster! Well, I was right to doubt that the power would stay on...we had one hour of power that morning (the 17th) I posted. Since then it's been going back and forth between a complete blackout and a brownout (maybe some of you know what a brownout is...dim lights and no use of the furnace, water heater or major appliances). We also completly lost our phone service all that time and water was completely off for about 24 hours. The sleet was heavy and just about nonstop. We have propane out here and the burners on the propane range work without electricity, so that gave us a little heat and sometimes we used our small fireplace. We used candles and oil lamps for light when the power was completely off at night. The layer of ice/sleet in the yard was really thick in places and the trees were covered with it. Some areas are woody here (including our 2 acres) and I started hearing the loud cracking noises frequently day and night...branches or tree trunks breaking...some branches which weren't even broken leaned over closer and closer to the ground, some (cedars limbs mainly) touching it. Walking in my yard required extreme caution, I walked very slowly and carefully, like an extremely old woman. The ice was so treacherous! I wondered what we'd do if there was an emergency...no phone and we live on a hill in the country...no WAY I could even get to a neighbor's house on foot over the ice without falling down! Our long downhill driveway and the icy road would've been impossible to drive on, for sure. Fortunately, the thaw began yesterday and today things pretty much thawed out...not entirely, but good enough to drive down to check on the our friends a few blocks away. They said that many in the neighborhood had left after the power went off to stay with friends, relatives or in motels and they had been staying most of that time with a neighbor who had some heat. One of our neighbors fell on the ice and broke his hip. The EMS couldn't get to out to get him...someone said something about the Red Cross finally got him to the hospital somehow? And there was a 7-car pileup on the road just outside the subdivision. I've never in my entire life experienced anything like this! I think we need to buy chains for our tires and some kind of little heater that uses propane without any electricity. Glad it's about over and we'll worry about the cleanup and which plants may have survived later!

Linda,

Wow...now I feel like a wuss for complaining after what I see YOU had to go through!!
I'm sometimes thinking "doom and gloom" and wondering what we all should buy if something were to happen that the power would go out for a long while.
I have some tins of food/candy that lasts, and a home phone that does not require electricity to run. Our cells would all lose power!
A flashligh with a "shake it for power" would be nice....candles and matches I always have.
I too thought I needed shoes that would not slip!!! I put on my golf shoes with the cleats to check the mail box one day...I hadn't collected the mail in a while!
Times like these do make you think!!!

Hope tomorrow is better!!

Linda, I am so sorry that you had to go through so many hardships, but thank God you are O.K.
Like Connie said we need to be more prepared, it is good that you have the propane stove for cooking and heat.
God Bless you, I hope things get better soon.
Josephine.

What an ordeal you went through! Glad you have your full power again. One summer when we lost power and our fantail goldfish died from the 100 degree heat and lack of oxygen, the Dh ran to HD and bought a generator to keep the Koi pond pumping and run fans for us inside. Then the next year that brand new generator was in a flood in our shop! He took it apart dried and cleaned it, but never got it back together. This ice storm had him concerned, he got more serious about getting it working again. We had a propane heater for our shop at one time. We would turn it on long enough to get everything warm and turn it off. But it was dangerous to fill with fuel, etc., so he got rid of it. We wished we had kept it for times like this, but thankfully we weren't in the group that lost power. The City had trimmed a lot of trees in our area after that 3 day power loss, so it helped greatly I feel.
Watch out this next weekend it starts coming in again to Central TX.

I only went into detail as a precautionary tale so maybe people will think about emergencies and disasters. I just have a strange feeling many will face hardships and disasters in the next 10 years or so. I'm sure my feeling is partly because of my FIL's problems...the power company there has had 3 really major power outages within the last year. The one in fall involved a really extreme ice storm that left huge numbers of people without power...some for as long as two weeks, this in the midwest where low temps got to single digits up to the teens for a while. If my BIL hadn't gotten there from another state with a generator within two days, who knows if my FIL would have survived without heat. It's a good idea to have an emergency plan for possible disasters and prepare whatever you can in advance. And yet I haven't truly prepared such plans myself before...but I have started a plan today. BTW, my Christmas gift for my daughter this year was a 6-in-1 device that she can really use. I wish I'd written down the name, but I might be able to find that somewhere. Among other things, it can charge a cell phone and function as a flashlight without any source of power other than a human cranking a little handle. Neat things are available if you look for them.

ok Linda... you have to find the name of that device. I WANT one of them... I NEED one of them...

Gina (she rents upstairs from me) and I were talking when the elec was off about what we needed to get for emergancies. We have wood but don't have a stove to put it in. We have our barbq but had no propane for it. We did have plenty of candles (after we finally found the match thingie) *giggle

We are looking for some kind of indoor fireplace thing that uses wood but where we don't have to build a whole chimmeny thing... And something we can afford. I need to look at generators also I guess.

The temperature got up to 37ºF yesterday and the ice started to melt creating another danger — falling ice. The TV stations in Austin spent some time during the news hour talking about the danger. The area under the large live oaks had piles of leaf-shaped chunks of ice. Driving into town, I narrowly missed getting hit by chunks that accumulated on power lines.

We are prepared for short power outages. The house is all electric so when the power goes, everything goes. The biggest problem would be keeping warm and lack of water. I suppose we could move into the propane-heated greenhouse. The heater is vented, but without a CO and CO2 detector, I wouldn't feel safe.

We're due for another storm this week-end. Everyone keep safe.

I have a drawer designated for power outage, emergency stuff. Batteries, flashlights, candles, matches, wind up clock, can opener that doesn't take electricity (very usefull). We always have bottled water put back. You can add other stuff like first aid kit too. I want to be able to go straight there and not fumble in the garage etc. for things.
In the car I have one of the emergency lights/flashlight, with some common tools inside. Haven't had to use it yet (knocking on wood).
It doesn't hurt to keep a supply of canned beans, vienna sausage, spam, chicken and tuna that don't have to be heated to eat too.

Well all of you stay safe and warm tonight and thru the weekend. That is when we will be getting the worst I think, unless they have changed their minds yet again. Which reminds me a battery operated radio is a great thing to have.

we found a battery operated radio... and batteries.... but it only gets fm stations and the best radio news station is am. :(

I have a car emergancy kit... just have't done the home one....

on my list of to does.

Ever since Rita we have been a closet full of designated stuff, fully charged coleman laterns, inverters, fans, batteries, weather station/tv that can be hand cranked or used with batteries or hooked up to the generator. Air mattress, first aid kit and plenty of water. We have a gas grill outside with double propane tanks that got us through a month and half of cooking with Rita so think it could carry us a week or so with no power :)

One has to have been there to truly appreciate every last need... Good going Araness! We were only out 5 long days with Rita but every time we are out of power for an extended time, I learn to add something else to the closet. It is almost getting comfortable now. pod

One thing I picked up and it's been really handy was an extra battery for my cell phone. 11.00 bucks (that included shipping) on ebay and I now keep it charged and ready to go. It would have been a lifesaver during Rita, I can't stress enough the amount of calls you'll make just to the MUST call places.

Aranass, you mentioned the gas grill and I remembered using it to cook when we remodeled the kitchen. We even managed to do cornbread on it! LOL! In a cast iron skillet of course.

yea that is one thing that we were talking about... making sure we had two propane jugs... if one went empty we would have the second one.

I know what you mean about the ice falling. It can be really unpleasant. The morning after the thaw started, I couldn't go out into the yard. Chunks and sheets of ice falling off the house and the trees all over! I've never lived in a northern area, so some of this was really new to me. DH had seen it all before. Oh, Nada, here's one which may be the one I gave DD. It seems there's several kinds and variations on these.
http://www.lifegearcompany.com/6n1.htm

We've got a nice big propane tank, so all we have to do is figure out how to somehow use propane for heat during a blackout/brownout, other than the burners on the range. Well, actually we do use the propane for heat, but our propane furnace still can't function without full power on the electricity. Nice to see the sun so warm today! One of the neighbors came by and borrowed our chain saw. There's a lot of sawing going on these days. The neighbor guy did ask us if we wanted him to remove some hanging tree limbs on our property later when he's finished over there. He's from New Jersey and said the cold snap was "fun"! Ha! I said "fun" wasn't exactly the word I'd use for that experience. Of course we said yes about the limb trimming! DH just isn't well enough to do that kind of thing (he's disabled) and I just can't seem to keep a gas chain saw working long enough to do anything much. We talked to another neighbor down the street today and they have an all electric place...so of course they had a hard time. Now he's talking about getting some kind of alternative heat using propane. He said they tried to drive out at one point during the iced-over days. The road out of the subdivision has an uphill part a little bit past his place and they got part-way up and then just slid back down on the ice. DH says you need tire chains to drive on that kind of ice. We finally went into the city today to buy food to replace what went bad.

This message was edited Jan 22, 2007 12:43 AM

LindaTx8 ~ with propane, if you can have a gas line or two run to different rooms there are "space heaters" that are very efficient heat. The new ones are also very safe and have igniters. If money is an object, you can still find old ones at 2nd hand stores although make sure they have the grates. Grates are expensive to replace. Most propane service companies will still service the heaters. Check with yours and see what they recommend. If you have a fireplace but cannot do firewood ( cutting it or some folks can't tolerate the smoke/open flames ) check into gas logs for the fireplace. Just some propane ideas. You could also use kerosene heaters, but that is messy to refuel and kind of smelly too. I use kero on the enclosed back porch for pets and plants and DH comments on how stinky it is. But warm....

My ice story:

After I got on the road Thursday morning to drive my commute to school, I had been WARNED about sheets of thick ice from cars, but really didn't think that much about it. I was following a Lake Travis school bus at quite a distance when a plate-glass sized sheet of thick ice sailed off the ROOF of the bus and toward me!! I just had time to slow a bit as it was sailing in the air toward my car! It landed RIGHT IN FRONT of my car and shattered. I feel like my guardian angel was watching over me, as it would have crashed through my windshield if I had not slowed.

I got to school, and another teacher had her windshield broken from falling ice and a student's car also had a cracked windshield from the same!

Now....it's 40 outside and I don't even seem to mind the cold!!! I guess the 3 days of freezing weather toughened us up a bit!!

Connie, we are so glad you were spared from that ice flying towards you.
Josephine.

Yes...I DO believe in guardian angels, even though they can't always keep you safe! I'm one of those people who always minds cold...II feel the cold more than most. Also my nose runs when I'm outside and it's below a certain temperature.
Thanks, podster. My DH used to be in the heating and air conditioning business, so he knows how to do all that. But he's disabled now and often not up to any physical work. We'll see what we are going to do.

there are a couple of propane heaters up on craigslist this week.

Thanks, Nada! We'll look into that! Geez...lost power again sometime during the night, this morning had to pull on my thermals again! What is their problem?? People here hate CPS (yes, we're on the grid)...we lose power way too often. But at least it came back on before 11 a.m. There's these huge power towers they're erecting along Hwy. 16 (past Helotes) and 211 and even over toward the Boerne area...I can't seem to find out if they'll affect us or not, but I know CPS originally was going to put them through Government Canyon until the people axed that idea.

I saw those towers, Linda....on our way back from Bandera. We live about a mile and a half from the Gov't Canyon park entrance. I'm so glad that they didn't cut thru the park!

Melanie

ok where is this Gov't Canyon park? I haven't heard of it before and so have never been. I LOVE parks.

It's a state natural area, not a recreational park. They established it years ago mainly to protect the aquifer. From Bandera Rd. in Helotes, you'd take FM 1560 south, drive past the infamous burning mulch mountain near Helotes and go to Galm Rd. Turn right and drive until the road makes a 90 degree turn to the left. That's where the entrance is located. I saw on the site that they have it closed for some workdays this weekend because there's a lot of downed trees and limbs from the ice last week. Lots of long trails out there...the upper parts of the GC trails are pretty rugged, out towards the 211 area. I really miss going out on the trails. DH can't usually hike at all and I have Plantar fasciitis...my foot gets pretty painful just from the amount of walking I HAVE to do normally.
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/spdest/findadest/parks/government_canyon/

thanks Linda... will have to put that on my list of places to visit now.

Hey, Mitch - Did you orther this up? It's been snowing here
for the past hour ! No sign of stopping yet.

Same here - dont worry I hate winter weather...


hate it...

Snowing here in Arlington too, but not very heavily and it is melting as it hits the ground.
Josephine.

You could pay me to move north (no offense those of you who are from the North) I hate cold weather and ice and snow. Everyone says it is a different cold up there, but I don't care to find out! LOL!

Here here,,, right with you.

Got up at 2a to let dogs out, and just as they went out it started snowing here in sw FW. It didn't do much here, but the deck is icy from rain and snow yesterday melting then freezing. Where is Spring??? I am ready.

We had a good covering of snow yesterday here in North Watauga. I really am enjoying it...Snow is better than rain for the garden it melts slow and soaks in deep. We are expected to have more this year, and I am not going to complain. The ground has been so parched, and it will make a huge difference this year. Now would be the time to throw fine seeds like Poppy out on the snow or icey ground, believe it or not! ☺

I figure the birds would get them, the way my seed luck goes! LOL!