I know what you're thinking? How bad was this storm right?
Well honestly, it wasn't too bad but it sure did leave us with a problem that had to be dealt with for the first time. Where we live, we get snow several times in the winter, every single year, and usually some ice when the temperatures get really low. What made this different this time was that not only did our power go out, a tree on the side of our house was crippled by the ice and slowly came down on our kids trampoline.
And as you can see, this was not a small tree. It clearly snapped in half from the weight of the ice.
So what happened? We had some warnings for an ice storm in advance but thought we would just have some snow like usual. We had a feeling the power might go out when the storm arrived but we had everything we needed so we weren't too concerned. The day of the ice storm we really only had snow and it wasn't until around 10 pm that night that our power went out. I woke up in the middle of the night and put extra blankets on the kids. Surprisingly the kids slept really good and actually slept in the next morning. When I checked the thermostat in the morning it was in the upper 50's. Which wasn't too cold considering the circumstances. I woke up several times throughout the night checking for updates on the power and moved our cold items from the fridge into our freezers. When my husband and I woke up the next morning we went outside to do some exploring. Nothing out of the ordinary except ice everywhere. Some branches had fallen on the side of the house from our pine trees but no damage to the roof. Thank goodness there was no damage and the kid's trampoline was fine, just covered in ice.
Everything was covered in ice.
Since there wasn't much to do we decided to clean out the shed which was something we had planned to do for awhile but never got to it. As we were organizing the shed and making a trash pile we noticed the tree branch above the trampoline was inching its way closer and closer to the trampoline until it was touching. See below. Every twenty minutes we were checking to see how far it had moved. At one point we even tried to move the trampoline so that the branches wouldn't hit it. However, the trampoline wasn't budging!!! It was too heavy from all the ice.
Later that night, we bundled the kids up with extra layers of clothing and we slept with extra blankets. The temperature inside our house was in the 50's which was cold but not freezing. It's strange because we didn't have freezing temperatures but everything was FROZEN. The next morning was Valentine's Day and what a sight to wake up to. We went outside early in the morning to check out the scenery and realized we had a whole new issue to deal with.
Branches were hanging low from the weight of the ice and you could hear limbs falling in the woods. Since the power company could not give us a certain date or time regarding the power and we don't currently own a generator, we decided to make sure our freezer foods stayed cold for as long as possible. After the kids were up we began working as a team to get snow bagged to put in our freezers and we also moved some foods into coolers and filled them with snow. In the meantime, our neighbor arrived unexpectedly and brought us some homemade biscuits and apple butter, courtesy of his sweet wife. To top this off and really add some icing to the cake, he also handed over a thermos of coffee for us and hot chocolate for the kids.
SOOOOOOOOO SWEET!!!! What a blessing it is to have neighbors like ours. That was one less thing we had to worry about. You know how hungry kids are. Their favorite part about breakfast was the hot chocolate.
As the day progressed the temperature continued to drop and our power company communicated that there were thousands of people without power in our area and surrounding areas. We started to make plans with regards to the night temperatures and Rob had a plan for lunch. It involved fire and
PIZZA !!!!
Who would've thought pizza on the grill?
The pizza looks fantastic but let's just say..........looks can be deceiving. Maybe if we had a pizza stone, it would've tasted better. Idk. We did eat it though so I guess it wasn't horrible.
With the temperatures in the lower 50's and no hope of the power being restored anytime soon, we planned on taking some of the kids to grandma's for the night since she had power. Rob decided to go check the roads to see if they were clear. If so, we would drive to his moms house later in the day.
Luckily the county was on it and the roads were clear of trees and debris. I know the temperature doesn't sound extremely cold but it definitely is when you consider you're surrounded by snow and ice.
I guess we got a little taste of what it's like to live up north.
After lunch we decided to take a drive out of pure boredom and see what the energy crew was up to. They were everywhere working hard on getting our powered restored. By late afternoon, our power was restored and everything was back to normal. This wasn't the first time we've experienced power outages. This happens once or twice a year usually during hurricane season or a winter storm. Maybe we should invest in a generator? Maybe we won't. I have to say that not having power is a pretty humbling experience. It reminds you that we are truly blessed just to have the essentials in life.
Thanks for reading this post! Have a blessed day!
