ICE STORM '98

It all started for us around lunch time on Wednesday, 1/7. It was advertised to be a nasty storm with cold air down near the surface and very warm, moist air riding up over. The result was rain that froze on contact. I put my horses in their stalls not realizing it would be several days before they got to go out. We lost our power for a few hours on Thursday AM but lost it for good just after supper that same day. It was going up and down all day so I filled 3 large buckets and a few gallon jugs with water since without power we can't get water from the well. The horse tank was about 1/2 full with water and it was warm enough that it would not freeze, yet. We got out to see some of the damage on Friday but the freezing rain started up again and did not stop until sometime that night. I would say the we had about 1.5 to 2 inches of ice built up on trees, power lines and fences. The eeriest thing is hearing the trees snapping and crashing down in the middle of the night, accompanied by exploding transformers (the fuses that normally protect them were bypassed by thick and conductive ice). We were very fortunate to not have any branches or trees bring down the power line to our house and the fuse worked on our transformer. Saturday (1/10) was a day for some beginning of cleanup and figuring out how to live without power for a while. I got an old stock tank out of the ice and up to our garage which is under the house. Bucket by bucket, I emptied the outside tank to this inside tank since it was going to get below freezing. In the meantime, ice and some limbs were raining down since it was sunny and above freezing for part of the day. I was able to take used bedding from the horse stalls and make a path and area for them to walk on without sliding around. I led them out by hand to show them where to go and was impressed by their calmness. They only got a brief time outside before I locked them back in again (I wanted to keep as much warmth in the barn as possible since I had no way to keep the water from freezing). Sunday we got a hot meal at my sister-in-law's 40th birthday party and a shower at my parents, which escaped the storm. We have a coal stove in the basement and bought an infrared heater that runs of a propane tank to keep the garage under the house warm. It then turned bitterly cold with a windchill well below zero. Luckily, it only got down to 54 or so upstairs and about 38 in the garage so the pipes did not freeze. We had some very nice friends nearby that helped us out with showers and some great chili which we could heat up on the coal stove. We filled the horse tank with water from the well, brought up bucket by bucket. I heated pots of water on the stove to keep the water as warm as possible so the horses could keep drinking. The horses learned where it was safe to walk and did not stray from their paths. They spent the nights inside where their body heat helped to keep the water from freezing. We finally got our power back at 3:00 AM on Friday (1/16). The tree people had come by and trimmed back the day before. I saw the lineman working at 9:00 PM, Thursday night. They worked all through the night in cold and snowy conditions and I wish I knew who they were because I would love to personally thank them for their efforts. Now here are some pictures taken right after the storm: This poor white pine tree has no more limbs on the North side. This is a picture of the chicken wire fence around the garden.    

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