Ice Storm 2009

This is how much ice that was around our power lines.

The ice storm was quite the experience. It started on Monday, January 26 and went until Wednesday January 28. On Tuesday morning the news said that so far so good, but if certain things aligned we would be in for a major storm. Well they aligned just right. At 9:00 a.m. our power went out. We were already stuck at our house due to the ice that had already formed. But now we were stuck with out power. So we ate our yummy breakfast that had just finished and went to work. I figured if we hung quilts at our windows and doors we could keep our warm air. It was a balmy 19 outside. So every quilt we owned soon became window and door treatments. Once snug we went outside to look at all the ice and watch as branches come crashing down all around us (literally). It was a pretty fun day. Then night set in and we started getting cold. Now Cuyler wishes he would have listened to me when I told him in December we needed to get a heater that we could use without power. As we sat cold we noticed our neighbors/friends still had power.So down we went dodging falling limbs once again, but the joke was on us. As soon as we walked in their door smelling cookies in the oven, their power went out. The cookies were locked in their oven, teasing us with the smell. We started a fire, talked for a while then headed home. Once home we had soup that we cooked on our kerosene stove my in laws bought for us a few years ago.(everyone should have one), then we tucked into our bed that was on the floor and sofa. We wanted to stay together for warmth and if a tree fell on our house. Needless to say we did not get much sleep with limbs falling on our house all night long. In the morning we got up, half frozen and decided this was not going to work. Listening to our radio that we got out of our 72 hour kit we found out 300,000+ were out of power. Our good friends called and said "We our on our way, you are staying with us". They are our prepared friends. They had a generator, gas stove and water heater and a wonderful log burning fire place. We stayed there with another family in our ward for three nights making the total out their house 18. They are amazing friends and we had so much fun. Power was restored to our house on Saturday evening. Hooray! Now it was time for clean-up which took me a week and our community is still in progress. Out of this experience we have learned we need to be more prepared, generator way to heat our home. But most of all we have been amazed with our ward family and the church. Words cannot even express the love everyone had and how they all pulled together. And just how organized the church is. Children eating by oil lamp
Making dinner

Sad Tree

The weed to the left was covered in the ice on the right.

Ice from power line. Maybe that was why all the power was out.

Lydia loved getting the ice and eating it.

The kids out on a much needed walk.

They had lots of fun, and were able to exert some energy.

This is just one of many limbs that fell on our property. One fell and went right threw the kids play center.

We felt like we were in Narnia with the Ice Witch

The kids loved playing and slipping on all the ice. Literally everything was covered.

This is our neighbor/friends car. He was on his way to work on Monday night and our road was a sheet of ice. Needless to say he lost control and went into a tree. luckily. It is a bit of drop off on that side of the road. We went out to look at it that night and we had to walk off the road and still barely could walk due to the ice.