The big ice storm #1 190114

      It all started on the night of January 12 of 2007. We had been there for 18 years and every winter until then we had prepared for ice storms and power outages, but they had never yet happened, so we thought we would be just fine with this one. We were dead wrong! This picture and all in this post were taken the morning after the storm hit. Note how thick the ice was.

      This huge branch hit the house in the middle of the night and then torpedoed through the uprights on the deck. All night long as the weight of the ice snapped off branches and it was so loud it sounded like gunshots going off.

      This was our tiny fireplace which was all we had to try to warm our large two story house. I spent all 14 days out on the ice trying to find enough wood to thaw in the living room so it would burn in the fireplace. It was an adventure, taxing day after day, living like people did before there was electricity on the farm.

      This picture was taken just off the back deck. The propane tank was not damaged, but without electricity the furnace would not operate, so we had to use the fireplace. During the day I could stoke up the fire enough to raise the downstairs temperature up to 40 degrees; at night it would drop down to 31 degrees due to the cold outside.

      These were the downed branches that blocked our driveway for many days.

      
Copyright Bill Weber 2018 and beyond.