Monday, December 10, 2007

 

Not *quite* caught with my longhandles down


The Winter Warlock is pissed.

Power went off at the house at about 9:30 a.m. today Front trees are going to collapse under the ice. Multiple trees are down in the neighborhood. I came on in to the office, but had to go a dufferent route because trees were down in the road.

Most recent e-mail from my boss lady:

Trees are snapping around me like crazy. I'm working from my kitchen table and the weeping willows in my yard are down to the ground. But because of their nature, they went down gradually. But the neighbors' are having quite a mess, with trees breaking down their fence; one across the street fell and broke their daughter's bedroom window, and ... Shit. I've got to go. I think something just hit our house.

It's our turn. Southern Oklahoma got this mess a few years ago. There was about one-third inch of ice on my truck.

Sand tubes in the garage at home. Check. Tarp, too, for the windshield. Batteries and flashlights on hand. Plenty of dog and cat food, and ER food.

Jones High School (Jones, Okla.) burned to the ground overnight: downed power lines.

Triage work today: Just what must be done. Will head to the house at 4 p.m.

--ER

Comments:
Be careful, keep warm, and watch for falling trees. One thing about moving a bit farther north is that ice storms are fewer. I lived through one - Christmas, 1998 - in Virginia, and do not wish to do so again. My wife and mother-in-law and year-and-a-half old daughter had to spend two nights in a hotel, while I stayed home to keep an eye on the pets in a pitch-black house, sleeping not only in my clothes, but my coat.

The power came on about 6:00 pm Christmas Day, but the thermometer in the house was buried - it was below 50 degrees - and it took all night and part of the next morning to get the house up to a livable temp. Of course, a few days later is was sunny and in the 60's. . .
 
BTW, what's a "longhandle"? I do hope it isn't anything like a "love handle". . .
 
Back home now. Power is on. Half a million households without power in the state, the radio said.

LOL. Longhandles = long underwear.
 
Man, glad to hear you're ok. I was watching the news and they seemed to suggest that OKC had taken the worst of it.

Unofficial poll here; did anyone at all outside of the Northwest bother reporting on the hurricane we went through one week ago?
 
I heard about major flooding, and a town evaced, I think. I do not recall hearing that it was a hurricane.

"War zone" watch: Someone has already uttered the dreaded, "It looks like a war zone"! Just now on NBC Nightly News, from Norman, Okla.

Arrrggh! Not unless the Winter Warlock really *is* gunning for us!
 
Ya know, ya gotta love thundersleet. It's just a ballsy kind of weather. I think I enjoy thundersleet more than it raining mud.

But for my money, nothing beats brown snow. You get the cotton ground between crops around Lubbock, Texas, and a good west wind to carry the dust, with moisture and freezing temps all at the same time: Brown snow.
 
Oh, the thundersleet was yesterday. Nothing today but rain and freezing rain and freezing fog.
 
I once drove a big rig through ice fog in Iowa. I stopped for the night outside Des Moines, and as I was fueling, knocked a quarter-inch of ice off all the forward facing part of the my tractor, from the wind break to the bumper.

"War zone"? These people need to find some new metaphors.

Thanks for the info on longhandles. Never heard the term. I should add it to my vocabulary just to make people's eyebrows rise.
 
I'm glad you're faring well. Did you ever find out what (if anything) hit your boss' house? It sure sounds like she's got the right kind of trees!

I hope you see blue skies soon!

(The word verification is very close to "nincompoop." I'll try not to take it personally! ;)
 
I think it was a limb. She's got bigtime leak in her garage, and no power -- and they just moved in to the house!
 
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