We had our first ice storm of ‘07Our power was out for 5 days. Over 73 thousand homes and businesses in Oklahoma were without power. 26 people died in related incidents. Emily was out of school for 6 days and just went back today. Millions of dollars of damage was done due to frozen limbs and power lines breaking and roofs caving in from the weight of the ice. Over 5 thousand people are still without power. The Red Cross Disaster relief truck pulled up in front of my house at one time, I didn’t make a noise and just hoped they would go away. I didn’t need anything. Emily and I just broke out the camping gear. Coleman lanterns, oil lamps and lights. We were low on kerosene but we got by just fine. We had about two weeks worth of food or more. We had filled everything we could with water but we never needed it. We had gas and the one gas heater in the living room did just fine. It was kind of boring and we played cards and Emily read her drivers manual by candle light. It never got colder than 17 degrees below freezing so that was really no problem.
We have a lot of tree damage and so does everyone else in our neighborhood, I’m tired of the sound of chain saws, I'm listening to them right now. The top picture is of my driveway when the sleet and freezing rain stopped for a while, the bottom one is of my front yard the next day. Emily had moved her truck out of the way when it started thanks to a neighbor who gave us a warning, that’s probably the first time one of my neighbors actually came in handy. My bother was and still is in the hospital, he spoke today for the first time in 5 weeks. Last week his heart was working at 17 % and his kidneys were functioning at 3 %. His kidneys are still shot but his heart is picking up some and he’s breathing on his own. This is a huge improvement form 2 weeks ago when they were talking about turning everything off and just letting him pass away. God Bless him and bring him home soon. I have hundreds of e-mails to deal with, too bad Spam doesn’t get frozen out. Peace and Health to all.