Ice Storm 2009

[JimR]

Remember that epic ice storm in early 2007 that postponed the awards banquet? Yeah, I think we're having another one of those. Hopefully, this time everything will be thawed and fallen trees cleared by Saturday.

It's rough in Northwest Arkansas. Rogers, Springdale, Fayetteville, and towns and rural areas all around are experiencing widespread power outages. Trees and limbs are falling like crazy, with plenty of downed power lines.

We still have power at work (one of the larger factories in the area - high power draw), but at least one of our three incoming lines is out. I'm not sure if I'll have power when I get home. A lot of my family and friends are in the dark.

I don't know if it's as bad elsewhere.

[magilson]

So far so good here in Springfield. We'll just have to hope it stays that was through the weekend. Luckily? we've had most of our trees trimmed by previous storms.

[SilverYota]

Jim I hope everything is well with you and your neighbors down there, and you can all find a warm place to stay. I can give a little insight from things I learned, personally and from friends, during our storm in '07 and feel free to share them with others.

Generators are very hard to find when this many people loose power, but a 400-1500 watt inverter might be enough to run the fan/controls of a gas furnace (depending on its size, read the tag to see how much power it draws). This is no long term solution, it does really suck going out to start the car every couple of hours just so you can run the furnace, but I made it through the first 2 days running the house temp up to ~85° and it would take about to 2-3hrs to get back down to ~60°.

If someone is abandoning their home to go someplace else, taking care of their water pipes is absolutely the most important thing. I know many times more people who had their homes damaged by broken pipes than falling trees/limbs.

A large plastic latching style container/locker will make a great fridge on the back porch and keep all the critters out, I lost very little food thanks to this trick.

Microwave ovens don't like generator/inverter power sources. An inexpensive small generator that I borrowed messed mine up and inverters would probably be worse.

It is very stressful when everything is broken, for me the first three days were terrible. Between spending 8+ hrs cutting up a giant tree/many limbs that blocked my driveway, working to restore my power, going out to start the car so I could run the furnace, and staying out late helping others to get some power back on left me little time to recharge my batteries. I got very little "broken" sleep those first few nights and thought I was going to explode before I finally got a full night of rest when I finally got a hold of a friends generator.

I was 14 days without power and I hope you guys won't have it that bad. Keep us posted on how you are doing and if there is anything that I might be able to help you with please don't hesitate to give me a call.

[JimR]

I should have just stayed at work. Or never gone to work at all.

The G20 was an icicle when I went out to parking lot. It sat nine hours in a sustained ooze of freezing rain and sleet, and was covered in a half-inch glaze in some spots. I chisled my way into opening a rear door, and got the car started while I chipped ice. Then it went downhill from there.



Somehow all four doors locked. I don't know why. I don't carry the fob anymore because it stopped working, and I wouldn't have hit buttons on the way out. Maybe some mysterious algorithm programmed by some jerkface at Nissan decided an idling car needs to lock itself after a certain time. Or maybe it's a 16-year-old car with ice in every possible orifice and fritzed.

Don't know, but long story short, it was a car running with defrost on (complete with compressor cycling every so often), and me locked out in approaching darkness. It was either get into the car somehow, or walk home in abrasive sleet and slush, and break in there. I didn't retain a spare key to anything the last time I switched wallets. Bad idea.

I borrowed a prybar from the shop, and gingerly pried on the little quarter window on the rear door. Making progress, and POW, it shatters into a million pieces. Problem solved, at least.



I got home, and decide to clear some ice. I watched a hardwood tree up the street self-destruct with a crash, halfway blocking the street. The sky flickered green occasionally with exploding power lines. Crazy stuff, just like the "falling tree" sound effect in movies. Yeah, so I snapped a few limbs off the fir tree hanging low over the G20 and Sentra, rather than let nature do it in a less controlled manner.



Great. Then I started to knock some ice off the roof of the little carport I built for the Sentra. Not a bad design, and it withstood some biblical winds and thunderstorms during warmer months. Still, the storm delivered apocalyptic ice as promised, and I backed the Sentra out into the elements yesterday just in case. Then, POW (surprise...again). The whole thing does its taco impression and falls in a heap, almost collecting me.



At that point, it's time to go inside and enjoy fine products by the New Belgium Brewing Company.

[JimR]

It takes a lot to get a Skroo-up of the Year (dis)honorable mention, and I'm proud my freeze-up helped warm up the crowd.

Saturday morning, six days in, I removed the ice on the Sentra with the intent of taking it to Springfield. High: 60 degrees. Ice was still a couple of inches deep in cross-section.



I wiped the Sentra down with a towel, and it was sparkling clean. What ice storm? No way I was going to take it out in the mudbath created by the snow melt.



A few days prior it was fused to the ground. From 6 degrees to 60.

The Infiniti is wearing a custom-fit cardboard "window" wrapped in duct tape and Glad Press 'n Seal, which is air- and water-tight. You can't tell it's there at 70mph. It's so impressive that I may keep it like that. Ozark high fashion.