I woke up during the night and it was pouring rain. Pouring. I thought to myself that school was canceled prematurely. If it was raining, we were not likely to have icy streets. Right? Wrong.
Even though our electrical wires are buried, our power went off not too long after I looked outside and saw it raining so hard. We were alerted to the fact that we had no power by the screeching of not one, but two, fire alarms. Robert had to find the ladder and drag it downstairs in the complete dark so that he could disarm those ear-splitting alarms. There must be another way to alert residents that their power was out than to burst their ear drums! And, what would be wrong with having a reset button on the alarm that could be pressed so that the whole thing didn't have to be disarmed? Now, one of these days, we'll have to figure out how to put the darn things back together.
Once the alarms were quiet again, we all went back to sleep. I was hoping we would have power again when we woke up later on Friday morning. That was not to be.
When I got up, I looked outside to see if the predicted ice storm had arrived. Indeed. Everything was covered in ice. Beautiful, but destructive and dangerous ice.
I love, love, love snow. Ice, not so much. I hate having no control over whether or not I am about to fall! Cotton, on the other hand, loved it. She likes nothing better than to run and slide on our kitchen tile. Now, the whole backyard qualified as her slip and slide!
Trees everywhere were broken. I stood on my back patio and listened to the limbs of trees in the neighborhood snapping off under the weight of the ice. Unfortunately, a lot of the trees still had their leaves when the storm came through. Those ice-laden leaves made the frozen limbs so heavy that they broke like toothpicks.
Our beautiful oak tree was a casualty. I am really sad to see it so destroyed.
The limbs that didn't break on our tree, which was unfortunately not the majority of limbs, have bounced back as the ice melted. Someone came this evening to cut all of the broken limbs out. Poor tree. It is so ill-shaped and ugly now. Heartbreaking.
We went through all of Friday without electricity. I was praising God that we have a gas fireplace. Temperatures were in the teens outside but that fireplace kept us pretty toasty inside.
We were luckier than my mom, who also lost power and who didn't have any alternative methods for staying warm. Not only did we have a way to stay reasonably warm, we were able to get out of our driveway and venture out to restaurants where we could get something hot to eat and drink. Mom was just stuck at home, cold and with little to eat besides peanut butter sandwiches.
Early Saturday morning found us still without power. I couldn't get in touch with Mom on her home phone or cell. I was really starting to get a bit concerned. I was afraid she may have frozen. I determined that I was going to have to try to make it over to her house to check on her and to bring her back to my house where we at least had a fireplace to provide warmth.
About the time I was going to get ready to leave, our power resumed. What a happy, happy moment that was!!! I turned on lights just because I could!
I quickly got cleaned up and headed out to Mom's house. Robert stayed behind in case he had to come save me in his truck if I got stuck on icy roads.
Fortunately, all was well at Mom's, if very, very cold. She quickly packed and she and her cat Casey came to stay with us until her power came back on. What a relief it was to find her cold, but well!
It is Tuesday night now. And the ice is starting to melt off of trees and shrubs and roads. Things are much better where I am than a little further west or north. We were able to work yesterday. And today. Some of my friends and colleagues are still homebound. And stir crazy! It's not great fun to be off work when you are also stuck inside your home.
Our temperatures are staying in the low 30's for a high. That's cold for the Dallas area! For once, it's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas around here!
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