What we did in the dark

Here are the events of the great ice storm of '07. It started to freeze Sunday night 12-9-07 while I was at work.

Around 3:00AM I could not sleep any longer because of the horrible sound of the branches falling, the rain, the thunder, and the exploding transformers.

3:55AM we lost power. We were standing on the porch watching the transformer near our house explode into a giant fire ball. Then a tree branch fell and almost hit us. We decided we better go in then. We spent the rest of the night in the family room near the fire place to keep warm.

Monday the branches continued to fall all over town. I went to work but we had no power there until 7:00PM. One of the kids accidentally stabbed himself (and me) with a needle in the dark. It was a sewing needle not a medical needle thank goodness.

Our car got hit by two trees during the day. Tabitha gave me a ride home from work. No one in our area had power.

We moved the food out to the porch because the fridge was not cold any more. We ate hot dogs cooked in the fireplace.

Tuesday I was off work. We moved the freezer stuff to the porch. Most of it ended up getting thrown out.

The ice is starting to melt but it is still raining. Branches still falling but slower now.

4:45PM the neighbors across the street get power back on. Ironic because most of them had generators or had gone elsewhere. We were still in the house. The power on our side of the street is run through a different transformer and it had more damage. That transformer is in our back yard.

We cooked pizza and bread sticks on the gas BBQ in the back yard. It actually worked fairly well everything just gets a little over done on the bottom.

9:00AM Wednesday morning the tree service arrives. They spent 30 minutes using the chainsaw and pulled most of the branches to the curb. We still have branches in the back yard and hanging in the trees. It is more expensive to have the hanging branches removed so we have to wait on that. We don't know how long it will take the city to clear away the debris from the curb. There is so much damage everywhere it will take months I am sure.

We have been keeping everyone entertained and well fed and warm from the fireplace for about 55 hours now. We are out of batteries and edible food.

We decided to go out driving to look at all the damage. We saw the NBC satellite truck near Mom's house. Her area was hit really hard.

Mom was staying at a hotel but her power came back on during Wednesday afternoon so she let us have the hotel room that night.

Wednesday night the power came back on at our house for a short time then the transformer blew again. They got it fixed up and we had power again when we returned from the hotel Thursday morning. We figure power was out at our house for 63ish hours. We were very lucky though because some people won't have power for weeks.

Here are some pictures of us entertaining the kids in the dark.
Crafts with Grandma.
Camp out by the fireplace.
Reading, crafts and snack time by the big sunny window.