The winds began on Friday morning and slowly picked up force throughout the day. For a while I thought we might avoid the predicted power outage as the electricity would come back on after it flickered off. But around 4 pm it went out and didn't come back up so I knew we'd be without it for at least 24 hours. The winds really picked up speed that night and all through the next day too. Reports said later that they'd reached 50 to 60 mph. That's really nothing to what folks dealt with closer to the center of the storm but for an area with old and tall trees it was pretty dangerous! Most of them are Pines which are notorious for their shallow root systems. Thankfully our property is mostly Oaks so we did not have to worry there, but in our community at large, several trees came down blocking roads and taking out power lines. On top of the winds we also had snow and there were times it was close to white-out conditions. But we managed to weather the storm by filling up water containers ahead of time and keeping the woodstove nice and warm. Our neighbor kindly hooked us up to his generator so that we could run the refrigerator and have a lamp or two on. The next day after all the snow stopped Jeff shoveled us out and learned from another neighbor that the power wouldn't be turned on until Wednesday. So we hunkered down as they say and got ready to live on limited electricity for the next few days.
At some point during the day I looked across at the neighbor's house and saw the effect of those winds on the icicles hanging from their eaves. I don't think I've ever seen slanted icicles before!
The icicles looks very cool, I can imagine how scary it was. I was in Cyclone Tracey when I was 3 and I still remember it like it was yesterday. Unfortunately that cyclone took out most of Darwin and is our worst Cyclone ever on record.
Those slanted icicles really do show the continuing force of that wind - not just a gust or two. Must have been a long several days. Glad you were able to weather it as well as you did.
Thanks to one and all- life is falling back into place. The only thing we don't have right now is cable tv. Those lines must still be down somewhere. But with the internet on- I don't mind. Some friends will be coming by for dinner tonight- some folks are still without electric around here. So I'm putting the house in order and will return to 365 tomorrow. Thanks for all your well-wishes. What a great community we have here!
Great shot of those slanted icicles. Shows the power of the wind.
Thanks to one and all- life is falling back into place. The only thing we don't have right now is cable tv. Those lines must still be down somewhere. But with the internet on- I don't mind. Some friends will be coming by for dinner tonight- some folks are still without electric around here. So I'm putting the house in order and will return to 365 tomorrow. Thanks for all your well-wishes. What a great community we have here!
Thank you Denise!
Thank you Marnie!
We're glad to be back to the old routine too. And the cable folks showed up this morning so now our home is fully operational!