Pt. 3- Ice Storm 2009, Hubby's Email

Day 20 without electric and a word from a neighbor is that the electric crews are down the road about 3 miles, coming this way. Some think they will restore power in our area in a couple days but as for myself I don’t want to get my hopes up too much. So I’m thinking maybe we will have power by the end of the week.

We have made it fine with the help of our Wonderful Heavenly Father and the many things He has blessed us with, like the generator and an abundant wood supply. We take so much for granted and do not appreciate the little things in life, we are all about self and self gratification and we want everything now, no matter how it affects anyone else.

Through this power outage I have had more time and opportunities to visit people I had never visited and talked to, like neighbors I have never even met. People sit around now days without thinking about what they are saying, and say- "I wish it were like the good ole days!" "yeah right!" The truth is, not many of us could handle it including myself.

From time to time in these last 20 days I find myself whining or complaining about things I have to do, to make it through our daily routine; like making sure we all allow 30 minutes to make sure the water heater has heated water and then try to conserve as much as possible so the next person may have water to take their shower. But that rarely happens, there usually isn’t enough hot water left, so we have to wait again, and let the water heater do it’s thing. That sounds simple but, you have to make sure and go to your breaker box and turn everything off that you don’t need, because the water heater takes up so much voltage.

At night we sometimes turn off the generator and fill the wood stove up as much as we can so we will have coals the next morning and we run the gas wall heater(hubby fixed our old gas line, so we could have another heat option during the outage) only at night since we are not running the blower on the wood stove.

The only bad thing about that, is the need for having lights on, so I can see to get ready the next morning, I have to go out at about 5:30 am to start the generator again. Some mornings I take just a second to look up, to the starry, predawn sky and thank God for the ability to get out of bed.

We try to share cooking detail but my wife does the most of it out along with the hundred other things she has to get done in a day like- directing our youngest in her lessons for each school day, reorganizing everything, trying to keep everything neat and clean. As well as ironing my clothes and loading clothes up to take to our friends’ house, who live down the road who happen to have power. For some reason the generator doesn’t have enough power to run our washer. By the time she gets all that done and gets around to cooking supper its either dark or getting close to dark and when you’re cooking on the back porch on a propane camping cook stove it gets a little chilly.

We eat really good lot’s of potatoes and onions along with some wonderful tender deer meat (I thank God again for those (3) deer He allowed me to kill this year). Like I said, we say we could live the good ole days but could we? I once took pride in saying I could do it, but think I am a hypocrite in thinking so, when you take away your conveniences like- hot showers when you want them,- a good hot cup of coffee from your electric coffee pot,- a refrigerator that keeps stuff cool without having to store stuff on your back porch in a cooler. Trying to keep your house warm by blocking it all off except what living space you need. Yes we are spoiled or at least I am.

So many off us have so much that we think we need, ( that we really don’t) and that is what has gotten our country in the mess we are in. Someone (Society) has told us we need cell phones, big screen tv’s, big kitchens that no one cooks in, that have fancy granite counter tops just to impress people who are not even our true friends. Your real friends don’t care what you have, they just want to be with you, for example, like my friend Al who knew I needed wood yesterday. He spent his whole day helping me cut, load and split wood. What a blessing he is my friend. He is not a believer, though my heart longs for him to be.

Yes, God has provided all we need in some form or fashion! I have mixed emotions about getting our power turned back on, because on the one hand I will be so glad to put the generator up and all the camping supplies back in the shed. But I am afraid I will forget all the things God has shown me in this time. I'll be honest, this hasn’t came without a little stress and difficulty and I am quite sure I have created this stress on my own, like the other night when I was up until midnight wanting to go to bed, but my eldest daughter had not gotten home yet because she was at a special Valentine’s dinner with a group of other young people. Something that she had been looking forward to for a while. I just wanted her home safe and sound so I could turn off the generator and go to bed. She did make it home, but not before I had gotten on my wife and other daughter's last nerve with breathing out threatenings of how someone is going to pay for her being late. Yeah, I can be quite a rascal to live with sometimes to say the least!

The next day I got up and everything was new again, and the Lord always shows me something, a different lesson! I went to a nearby town to get a haircut and more gas for the generator. When I walked into the barber shop, I saw a man sitting in the barber chair getting his hair and beard trimmed. I noticed something was not quite right and when the barber finished cutting his hair he struggled to get up I could see that it appeared he suffered with something like cerebral palsy. I walked over to assist the barber in getting him out of the chair and as we both pulled him to his feet, he struggled to looked up at me with his head slightly turned and smiled and said, "thank you!". Once again, God said, "See? You think you are the only one in life who has any struggles but you’re not! And it’s how you choose to react or accept these challenges that makes the difference". I knew God wanted me to learn something as I saw this man as he smiled at me. I could tell he felt good about his newly trimmed beard and hair cut even though for the most part had no control over his body. I new this man faced extremely difficult challenges every single day, and I don't have anything to complain about at all.

God is good! He is sovereign! He is kind! And He is in control of whatever situation we are in. Well I probably bored you enough with my latest power outage update, but one last thing to leave you with, if there are any country music fans out there, if you get a chance, listen to this new song by Josh Turner its called "Everything is Fine". My friends everything is fine and will always’s be fine as long as we trust in Christ! It's more than just saying it, it is believing and experiencing it!
God Bless You All!

ps- (Mrs. C writing now) it’s my turn, to add just a little note about that song.

Yesterday was of course Valentines Day. Well, that was the furthest thing from our minds. Our day was consumed with just getting things done that needed to be dealt with while we could. I decided to take my sister up on her offer to come up to her house, to do laundry or take showers. My husband was working in a nearby town and here at home, getting some really good, oak, firewood from downed trees, and then he and his friend split it and stacked it, working on that all afternoon. Our youngest daughter and I were able to get our showers here, but we cannot dry our hair here at home, because hair dryers of all things take more power than a lot of other things, and the generator just can’t handle it. We waited for our oldest daughter to get home from work, she only had to work half a day. Once she got home and had some lunch, we loaded things up and headed to the hills, to my sisters' house. When we got there, we started a load of laundry, and sat down on the couch, it felt like a huge load was lifted off our backs. Actually, when my sister hugged me, that was when the load lifted, it was so heartfelt and loving. She understood, since they had been without power too.

We sat and visited with her for a couple of hours, before she and her husband headed out to go to out for dinner. I told her I was so sorry, I had completely forgotten it was Valentines day, and realized then, that was why they were going out to eat. She said it was fine, no big deal at all, we could stay there and finish up, even if they had to leave.

The girls and I admitted to one another, it felt so good, we felt like we had a little mini-vacation, being there in her adorable house. She has that ability to make everything so cozy and charming. It was such a nice break. K took her shower, we were able to do our laundry, and I even ironed my husbands' work shirts while we were there, it’s just too hard to find a time here, and figure out when I can, because even the iron needs a lot of juice.

Well, Mr.C called once, to see how much longer we would be. We were almost done, just a little more to do. He was now finished with cutting wood, and was working on cooking supper. He was cooking some breaded and pan-fried venison, with skillet-fried potatoes.

Once done, the girls and I loaded everything up, headed back home, and enjoyed the street lights all the way, up until we turned onto our road. We can now see street lights on the black top, behind our house, which sometimes can make you feel a little envious, when power is so close, but yours has not been restored just yet. But, as we rounded the last corner, we could tell my husband had the generator going, the back porch light was on, and things were pretty "homey" looking. It also helps make things pretty "homey" feeling, when you are cooking on the back porch, the aroma from the meal he had prepared, was still lingering in the air. Oh man, did that smell wonderful! We couldn't wait to eat.

As we hauled the clean laundry back into the house, we didn’t see Mr. C, but could hear the sounds of a song starting. He had waited for just the precise moment, for us to enter the kitchen and start this song. He had the table set, and had a little chocolate for each one of us, on each of our plates. As he came out of the living room, the words of the song started and I couldn’t believe how much those simple words matched our life. I just melted into his arms, at that moment, that was just exactly what I needed. As I listened to this song, tears just flowed from my eyes, I couldn’t help it. I was so tired and so hungry, not to mention, I had been fighting this nagging cold, that had been lingering in my tonsils all week long, and was almost at the breaking point.

Here was this man, this amazing man, who I love so much, who had worked so hard all day, taking care, making sure we had all this good firewood. How he managed to find the strength to do what he did, I’ll never know? He should have taken a shower, and been resting, waiting for his wife and daughters to come home and spoil him, after the hard day’s work that he put in. But no, he was only thinking of us, and how he could make our Valentine supper, just a little more special.

The song, "Everything Is Fine", couldn’t have been more appropriate or needed, just those three little words, EVERYTHING IS FINE! Because, everything is fine. And just being able to stand there, and hug him, letting his strong, arms hold me as I messed up his clean t-shirt, crying all over it, thanking God for him, I knew, "Yes God, you are so right, everything is just fine!!!" We’re so spoiled, so blessed, and boy, do we ever take so much for granted. And yet you still love us, you make all things turn out for Your good and Your glory!" Things cannot get any finer than that, can they?

I just had to share the end of the story, from last night. And thankfully, I am feeling so much better today, maybe all that crying unstopped something in my tonsils, I don’t know, but everything is fine!!!

ps (again)- our power was finally restored, Monday evening Feb. 16th, around 6:30 pm. We had went 20 days and 17 1/2 hrs. without power. I actually cried when I thanked the power workers for restoring our power. They worked so hard all day long, and we were extremely grateful!!!

Continuation- Pt. 2

Well, after that last post, I have realized that if I write about each day in such detail it's going to take forever to tell of our 3 week ordeal. I might as well write a novel and try to sell it, if I'm going to go through that much trouble. ;o) So, in order to save time, I'm just going to post 2 emails that my husband wrote, to share with friends and family.
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Today is the 13th day without electricity and before my memory ebbs away and I forget the beginning of these interesting two weeks of my life, I wanted to write some things down because I know we will forget.

Day one without electric began sometime after midnight on a Tuesday morning it seems our power is the first to go and the last to come on. By Tuesday night the ice storm had taken its toll and thousands of poles and transformer’s were down a estimate of about 3000 poles(the numbers have greatly increased since that initial report) and 65,000 to 80,000 people without power.

I don't think I will forget the calm, cold morning after when I woke up in our house all of us with our sleeping arrangements gathered as close to our fire place insert as possible but without the electric blower you could see your breath in our house.

I remember us finding our battery operated radio and finding a station and you could hear the dismal report from our local DJ telling of the devastation. I did not go to work that Wednesday because I spent most of my time cutting us a path with my chain saw so we could get out of our drive way. One entry way was blocked by a downed transformer and the other was blocked by several large tree limbs.

After we got trees cut back, we thought since we heard on the radio that there was going to be an increase in demand for generators we would try to drive south to find a town with power because we knew Jonesboro was without power also. The news said it could be as long as 4-6 weeks before some people would have power restored. Our daughters said as we were driving it seemed like a part of the stories, "The Grapes of Wrath" or "War of the Worlds".

Finally, after we drove almost 100 miles we found a town that had electric (Bald Knob) we stopped ate lunch at Mc Donald’s. It was strange because we could see a lot of people that appeared to be doing the same thing we were, trying to find power and get supplies. I ask where the nearest Wal-mart was and it was a few miles down the road in a town called Searcy. We found Lowes, and I asked if they had a generator or if they knew of one of their stores that might. I was willing to drive to Little Rock but they said you would not find one there either, and maybe the only chance to find one would be as far south as Pine Bluff which was way below Little Rock.

So we went to Wal-mart and it was almost scary how the shelves looked so bare, as far as supplies like Coleman fuel, candles, lanterns, flashlights and batteries. We got what we could find a few candles and batteries and headed back into the deep freeze. Let me just say, it was an eery feeling, having to drive back into the frozen zone, there was definite starting point and ending point that we crossed that day, and driving back into it was very strange, a very bleek and dismal feeling came over all of us, as we left the town with power and entered back into the vast frozen area that covered most of NE Arkanass. As we traveled farther north, back toward our home, the devastation worsened. We however did not see the most absolute, worst part, which was still north of us in the Corning area.

The next day Thursday, went back to work and it was so hard to try to concentrate on my job and listen to the panic around the office with people talking about the mad rush on generators and how fast that were going every time a truck load would come in. After work you would see people lined up at the gas pumps, Walmart was crowded everyday in Jonesboro once they got power with people from nearby towns like us who were without power.It’s a disturbing sight to see how most people go into that greedy survival mentality. I was glad to get back home even if it was dark, for some reason it seemed less stressful.

One of my Christian friends called me at work and told me I better get my name on the list for a generator and I thought, "...wow everyone’s in a panic even some of the Christian people". Local hardware stores were marking generators up to right at $1000,00 that would normally be only about $400.00 to $500.00 and they were selling them as fast as they could get them. My wife and I were both thinking and praying, that the Lord would help us not get caught up in this panic and we knew with our budget, we shouldn't spend $1000.00 right now.

A couple of days later one of the men who sells conveyor belts to Hytrol, came in and we were talking about the power outages, and he said he had a generator that his father-in-law purchased 2-3 years ago and he didn’t think he would need it anytime soon. His father-in-law had passed away, and he could sell it to me.

I could not believe it when I went to his house, he lived just south of Memphis, he had the generator sitting in his drive-way, waiting for me to pick it up and it looked like he had just bought it. After we talked a bit I asked him how much money he had to have for it and he explained again how his father-in-law had passed away and apparently his wife was ok with him selling it, and he only wanted $200.00 for it. We almost cried! We both have seen time and time again, how God has met our needs despite what the world says about what we need and when we need it.

So now we have a bit of normality in our house for a few hours at night we can run our blower to our fire place insert and stay warmer and flip a light on when we go to the bathroom. We take so much for granted. When we thank God for our daily provisions at meal time or any other time during the day, we REALLY THANK HIM! My wife hears it from me all the time how I compare our lives to others, who seem to have more and I get frustrated because it seems I can never build up that savings account or ever make our house look like those big houses, that others live in. But I am ever so thankful that our Lord continues to show us His Power and Love by providing our every need. When all we really need is Him!

I guess I need to go I want to enjoy this day of rest, we are all so tired from yesterday’s day of tree trimming and yard clean-up from the ice storm aftermath. The girls are going to a movie this afternoon and I will get to spend time with my beautiful wife. We do pray for electricity soon but it has made us appreciate things more. Got to go, got to give the generator a break.

Life After Ice

Well, as everyone in this part of the state knows, the ice storm of 2009 was very destructive. We have a lot of trees in our yard, and the beating they took was brutal. The remaining scars, which stand out so vividly against the sky, are reminders of the heavy ice that once covered everything, and caused the limbs to come crashing down. Those days of sitting here, listening to the limbs as they dropped continuously for two days, (day and night) was almost more than I could bare. It sounded like we were in a war zone, and actually felt like the world was falling down around us, literally. The third day after the ice storm, brought more horrible sounds, but this was because the thaw had started, and now the ice was falling, often sounding like glass shattering.

Our first week without power was the hardest. Early Tuesday morning, right at 12:30am, we lost our power. My husband and I were like robots, set on auto-pilot. We knew from our last experience, that an ice storm meant we would be without power for days. We both got up out of bed, taking our blankets and pillows with us. We knew the first thing would be the loss of heat. We had gone "all electric" just within the last year. Thankfully, we still had our fireplace insert, and a hot fire was still blazing in the insert, during those early, morning hours.

We shut off our bedroom, and as he stoked the fire, and added more wood, I made a spot for each of us, he slept on the couch, and I took the love-seat. We didn't wake the girls, we knew they had plenty of blankets, and would be fine until morning. What little sleep we did get, was often interupted by the sound of the freezing rain, still coming down.

It was still dark when my husband decided to get up. He wanted to check out the roads, and see what it was like, to see if he could possibly make it to work. He felt confident that he could, and so he gathered everything he needed, and headed to his workplace. Thankfully, his place of employment has a Health Club, and he took his shower there.

We had made the girls get up before he left, so we could shut off their bedrooms, and try to conserve what little heat we did have from the fireplace. My main goal from that point on, was to keep a hot fire going constantly. It's amazing how much body heat one can generate by just keeping a fire going, so, I welcomed the task.

To keep ourselves warm, we piled on layer after layer. We lit candles, and our oil lamp that my Grandmother had given me. Tummy's were starting to growl, so we ventured into the kitchen to see what options we had for breakfast.

Chocolate cake was the unanimous decision. We didn't have to cook it, just cut a piece and enjoy!!! That was easy. Huddled close to the fire, we enjoyed our cake immensely, and the best part of all, no one paid any attention as to how many pieces of cake had been devoured in such a short amount of time.

Our day was quite eventful. Our close friends stopped by to make sure we were ok, they still had power, and invited us to come over and get showers, and also to have supper over there at their house. My husband had for some reason, just the night before the power outage, cooked a huge pot of venison stew. We sent it with them, and they were going to warm it up, and we'd have a sort of pot-luck meal together that night.

Well, when it came to leaving our place, it was easier said than done. Limbs were hanging so low, some had already fallen that first day, and both of our drives were blocked. So silly me, I decide we could just drive through the field. My daughter is at the wheel of her car, I tell her confidently, "you have front-wheel drive, we'll make it just fine." So off we go, only about 10 ft. right down into mud. I had thought the field would be frozen just like everything else around us, but unfortunately it wasn't. So, being the industrious woman I believe myself to be, I told the girls we could pull the car out with the truck. I had seen my husband do this many times. We found what we needed, hooked the car up, and what do ya' know. I got the truck stuck as well.

This was horrible. My only option now, was to call my friend's husband and see if he could help us out. He was calm, reassuring, and said he'd be here in 10 minutes. It didn't take long at all, with his instruction and his 4-wheel drive, he had both vehicles out in no time. That was a huge relief!

Back on solid ground, the girls and I loaded up once more, and headed to our friend's house. I dropped them off, so I could go back to our house, and make sure we had a really good hot fire going, that would last until we returned later that night.

My husband made it safely home from work while I was here at the house. He and I left, to go join everyone at our friend's house. Lights, heat, hot water, and good food all awaited us there. They immediately convinced me to take my shower first, the lights were starting to flicker, and they weren't sure how long they would have power. That was a good suggestion, I hurriedly took a shower, dried my hair, and then joined everyone in the dining room. It wasn't long after, and their power was now gone. Poles snapped under the weight of the ice, and another transformer came crashing down. We sat and visited for quite awhile in the candlelight, while the little ones ran around with flash-lights.

It was getting late, and we knew we needed to get home to check on the fire, and get our own house ready for our sleeping arrangements. We decided to block off most of the house, and we would have to live in the dining/sitting room & kitchen. The arrangements changed over the next few days. But we started out with the couch, love-seat, both of the girls' mattresses and the dining room table. Hubby took the couch, I took the love-seat again, and the girls had their mattresses to sleep on. Several layers of blankets on each of us, kept us all toasty warm, even though the temperature in the room was not warm at all. The air felt quite frigid as we breathed it in.

The fire in the fireplace could only do so much, without the blower to circulate the heat, the heat just didn't reach very far into the room. Hubby and I took turns each night keeping watch over the fire. Wood had to be added constantly to keep it burning hot.

The next morning, we could see our breath, it was so cold in here. With the freezing rain that had continued on through the night, we knew there was no way hubby was going to be able to make it to work. For one thing, we were literally trapped in our yard. So many limbs had fallen all around our house, there was no way to leave, except by foot. Another pole had snapped through the night, this time blocking the road that runs in front of and beside our home. I was actually very glad that my husband would be here at home with us. We just really needed his take charge attitude and wisdom, to help us have hope, and know that everything was going to be ok.

...to be continued