The Privilege of Seeing Kentucky's Worst Ice Storm in 100 Years
Posted: Friday, January 30, 2009
by Mogama
http://www.mogama.info
More than 700,000 homes and businesses have lost power, representing 1.3 million Kentuckians without electricity. At last count, over 100 shelters have been opened to take in families that have lost electricity. Five of those shelters are in Owensboro, where we live. Owensboro's largest shelter has maxed out. Governor Steve Beshear has visited Owensboro. Before that the governor had declared a state of emergency for all of Kentucky, and the federal government has labeled Kentucky a disaster area.
It starts on Tuesday January 27, 2009, when two inches of ice fall on the state. Our two teenagers celebrate the cancellation of school, wishing schools will be closed tomorrow too. Harriet stays home from work; I can't get her car to crack open. I could boil water and pour it on the vehicle's windshield, but I'm not even show that old solution will work this time.
Wednesday adds six inches to the ice for a total of inches of wintry blanket. From looks alone, it appears like your typical snow, but don't be fooled, it's dangerous down there once your soles get passed the fluff of snow, as my wife soon finds out. She does not go to work again, and her colleagues who did have to leave early.
When it comes to cold weather, Harriet is the brave soul of the two of us. Later in the day, she takes on the drive way and the job of knocking planks of ice from her vehicle, with the help of our son. To lessen my guilt for going ice chicken, I make coffee for Wife and Son.
Communication blacks out. Radio signals are a no-hear. Ice freezes the AT & T network, and all cell phones under our roof quit working. For people with electricity, cable television is out. Satellite television signal is in and out. I call Direct TV, and the guy on the line suggests breaking ice off the dish to see. Yep, it's the ice. After cracking mirrors of ice plates from the dish, the signal gets through to our receiver. Harriet and children are happy watching TV again.
One of our leaders from church reaches us from her land line (analog phone, that antique of the communication museum). Our Vonage phone is working, because we have Internet connection, but on normal days the signal is pathetic over the Vonage network.
With our cell phones useless, except to play games, write notes, and take pictures, those of us who have gone all cellular are learning that we may want to remarry Miss Landline, in case we ever see weather like this again.
The joke of the day happens to be former Senator Al Gore, who is appealing to a committee in Congress, asking representatives not to neglect Global Warming. "What Global Warming?" I giggle. "Why not use the more wiggle-room term 'Climate Change'? And you should replace 'Global Warming' with 'Global Warning'. O how Mother Nature makes a fool of politicians and eco-activists sometimes! But these shameless arrogates don't even get the joke!"
On both Thursday and Friday, I drive Harriet to work. It's a slow, ugly drive. Ice still covers my car, as temperature remains below freezing. For some reason, I take our trash container to the road for pickup, unsure if sanitation will make the run.
I call Marnel, my partner, about going to the jail, but he first tells me he doesn't have power. He says he has never seen an ice storm this damaging before, and he has lived in Kentucky all his life. That's when I realize how serious the situation is. I prepare for Fresh Start at the jail, not sure I should go, but I leave the house anyway. If nothing else, I just want to see things around town. I have to leave this house for whatever reason I can cook up. It's snail-pace driving. On neighborhood roads I drive on gear 1 or 2, then switch to regular D gear on main streets. There are lines at filling stations; at one of them it's a group of people with containers for possibly kerosene or some other fuel for lanterns or so.
Grassy areas look like fields infested with vertical spikes of broken glass reflecting the sunlight. On my cell phone, I take pictures of weighed-down trees, as I drive. Trees small, medium, or large, regardless of size, just about all of them suffer broken-off branches, due to the heaviness of glass-like crystal ice sheets or ice tubes. Those frozen tree limbs look like giant spikes or overgrown antelope horns or elephant tusks whose weight has worn out every ounce of the beast's endurance.
Certain parts of town are completely impassible. Downed power lines - garbs of them encased with ice coating. So are transformers and other conduits of electricity and signals represented by those overhead cables and wires. A friend saw a couple of transformers give out streams of fire shoot to the sky before they blow up in a series of explosions. If the ice is doing this much worse-than-Hurricane-Ike damage to the trees, power lines and cables, what exactly will the ice do to people's roofs. It was just recently that our roof was repaired from Hurricane Ike damages that occurred on September 14, 2008. Will we need to file another weather-related insurance claim?
Of our circle of friends, we are among the few exceptions to have uninterrupted electricity. Ours flickered for a time or two but has not totally blacked out. Favor may be cutting a slack this time around, because we've gotten the blunt of recent disasters that have hit Owensboro.
Since it's impossible to reach them by phone, I make stops at several homes of friends. One family with a four-year-old is moving in with another family whose power has just been turned on. Another young adult and her boyfriend decide to tough it out in their cold apartment. I offer the young lady the church facility, which has power, if they want to move out there. One family has been without power for 2 nights, and I gave them the church key to find warmth in God's house. Four of our church families have moved out of their homes to escape the cold. The church treasurer and his wife, along with their grown children, join the treasurer's wife's mother at her assisted living home.
People are starving for information. The NPR-affiliate stations that reach our area remain off the air. Tips about what to do in ice-storm weather abound on the local radio station that has managed to get back on air. One tip for keeping foods frozen in a powerless house: Instead of using outdoors ice, which may not be sanitary, fill some buckets or large bowls with water and leave them outdoors to freeze. Bring the frozen containers inside the house, break up the ice, and cover your perishables beneath the ice.
Power company workers, from our state and many other states, have combined forces to restore electricity. Their goal is restore power to all Kentuckians anywhere anywhere from a few days to 3 weeks. National Guard contingents from other states have also teamed up with the Kentucky National Guard to help deliver services to families. It's times like these that we count it a privilege to pay taxes.
Generators have been selling like hot cakes. One friend said he was in queue at Home Depot for 3 hours before he was told generators were sold out. Then a truck came in with 250 more units, and they all sold out. Home Depot sold 800 generators in a matter of hours. Speaking of generators, four persons have been reported dead from carbon monoxide poisoning; that's the serious side of this disaster - there are those mourning their dead now.
For our family, Harriet, my wife and the mother of our children, is the queen of this ice storm. With her urging, both cars are filled with gasoline. She bought enough groceries and cooked sufficient food that has lasted all week. And we are told that temperature readings should hit the 40s by Saturday January 31.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Thanks Mogama for the status on Owensboro. I have friends there hunkering down without electricity, and it's helpful to understand what is happening in more detail than the press currently provides.Thanks, Robert, for your comment. Hopefully, your friends can find warmth elsewhere until they have power restored. ~mogama~
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