Snowtorious B.I.G., Part Two

Our road sign

The big tree closest to the house...

Where those branches came from

The debris in our front yard

The view of the yard from my office

Somehow the bird feeder's branch survived!

An icy 400 North

The power lines in motion... Yikes!

Heading to town...

Wednesday night. Writing from our friend, Sam's, house. What a night! Around 9:30 Tuesday night, we were watching some television, and heard a large crashing, crunching sound. It was close. Rich jumped up, worried it was a branch hitting his car. We'd pulled the car out of the garage in the afternoon, and left it out. Just above the driveway are

 a number of persimmon and walnut trees laden with ice... But the car was fine. I looked out the front door and saw a large branch lying very near the front porch. That was the sound we'd just heard. Just outside the window of the room we were in. As we looked out the window, we saw more branches come down. This tree is not only the closest tree to the house, but it's the tallest... I was frightened. But that was nothing once we stepped outside to bring the car back into the garage. You remember that it'd been sleeting most of the day, and we figured we were lucky the freezing rain seemed to have skipped us. We were mostly just waiting for the heavy snow. But as Rich stepped out of the garage into the driveway and promptly began to slide, we realized things had made a horrible turn for the worse: it was pouring rain. It was very cold. And everything was now covered in at least a half an inch of ice. Everything. We worked to get the car back in the driveway, which meant we had to use a hoe and a shovel to cut up the ice to get the car some traction. We got the car in the garage, to a soundtrack of tree branches falling, near and far... but that was the predominate sound above the steady rain falling and instantly freezing. We went inside, realizing that there was no way the power was going to stay on, not with that much heavy rain falling, and the tree branches falling so frequently. We went back inside, far more nervous than we'd been earlier, and tried to watch a little more tv. What we really did was call our parents. I think we both needed a little bit of comfort. At about 10:30, or about 45 minutes after the first branches fell, our power went out. One quick click, and then blackness. Rich said, this is here to stay, and so it was. We went into our dining room, lit the kerosene lamp, and played four great rounds of Yahtzee! We slept quite well on the floor between the dining room table and the fireplace hearth. We kept the gas fireplace off during the night, but when Rich woke up around 7 in the morning on Wednesday, turned it on. The temperature in the kitchen had dropped to 48 degrees. Inside. When I went to bed (late, around 3) there was heavy, fluffy snow falling, and I thought, well, here it is... the eight inches on top of the frozen rain on top of the sleet... But in the morning, we found only about an inch or two had fallen. It was enough to allow the dogs to get some traction while they walked. And it was easy to clear a path in the weeds behind the barn... even Kerouac figured out that if he put his head down, he could break the plants and walk where he wanted... I spent the day reading. And around 3:30, our landlord drove up to check up on us. He was glad we were so toasty in the dining room, but warned us that the power would likely be off for at least another day. Rich has school on Thursday, and a good night of sleep followed by a shower would be very welcome for him. Our landlord suggested we head into town, if we can. He helped us turn of the water and then we headed out, on our way to our friend, Sam's house. Dogs in tow. I hope she knows what she's in for... On our way into town, we drove over the power line that had fallen across Hutton Road. The one no longer providing us with electricity. Our neighbor, Alvin, saw us leaving, so that was good news, and on the way back to town, the power lines along Hutton Road were dancing in the wind. Bogged down by the inches of ice on them, they were just bounding in the wind... Our landlord had suggested the power may be out for days, and if those lines met in the wind, well, it'd be many more days. But we're among friends, and among television, and most wonderfully, heat... I hope you all fared well in this storm...