.com Forum · American Forum

An ice storm hit last night/today and it's wicked here. I had to work this morning and it was awful getting there. Driving wasn't too bad, but the "other" hazards on the road made it the most difficult- there were tree branches down everywhere in the streets, flooding, and of course, ice and slush on the roads.

I made it to work without any problems, but being outside walking dogs wasn't real fun since all you could hear was ice crackling and tree limbs falling. To top it off... thunder and lightning as well. Yes, in the middle of an icy mess, there was thunder and lightning.

This is actually the position where most of my sunset shots come from- it's a different view today.



The tree in front of kennel


The tree by the parking lot


Trees at the kennel




Ice on a crabapple tree


After I got home for lunch, I sat down at the computer and a couple of minutes later heard a very loud THUD. I have a couple large trees in front of my house and we have been worried that they'd fall and hit the house- thankfully the limb fell the other way, but here it is.




I'm not going to post the link to it here since the video I have contains language that isn't SD appropriate, but for those of you that know my Youtube account, check it out- one of my idiot neighbors was trying to pull down that huge branch in front of my house and he falls on his rear. It wasn't someone actually trying to accomplish anything- just a punk being a punk, and falling He fell twice, but I didn't set the camera in the window until after he'd fallen the first time. The "commentary" is my mother with her wicked sense of humor, and well, that's where the language comes from lol. If you don't know my youtube account, email me and I'll send it to you- I just dont want to post it in a public forum lol

Wow you look like you got the ice storm we got down in Ky

WST

Looks like our ice storm last year, does everyone have power mostly?

I wish you guys safe traveling to and from work, seriously avoid trees...that was the worst of ours last year. Two inches of ice, the president declared our town in a state of emergency and we had to leave after the second day, it was 25 degrees when we left our house!

Hope everyone stays safe!

Those pix are from the ice storm last December, it was absolutly wicked. Many people (over 100,000) were out of power for a week and didn't have relatives/friends who had power so they opened up two shelters so that people could stay warm. The cool part was that they even let people bring their pets.

Logan is right about the trees- that was the worst part. If you'd open up your door and listen outside all you could hear was cracking and popping, and then large booms from where trees/large branches had fallen. With all the tree damage that happened here, they estimated that it would be fall before it could all be cleared so the city hired contractors to help clean up the limbs/trees and they're hoping to have it done by late spring.

That storm cost the power co over $10 million in lost equipment and labor expenses since they had to call in crews from several other states to help restore power. I was one of the few lucky ones who never lost power, but my brothers and sisters did lose power so I had company here for a bit lol

Northern Kentucky got hit too. I haven't been in school since Monday. My road is basically a sheet of ice at the moment.


-Liz

It took our town over a year to clean up the tree mess, they even bought a wood burning thingymabob () to try to clean it up.

Only the very end of 08 was most of it clean...it was crazy.

Our dog kennel got smashed, with a dog inside, thank god for his dog house, he was loose all night but stayed in the yard. Nobody knew any of this happened up that morning. We were NOT expecting it.

...My best friend and I were on National TV walking Kujoi and her Newfie up the street with huge trees in the road, it was pretty neat, even if we didn't see it.

Hey Shy!

I didn't know you were from IN too. Glad to see I'm not the only one.

I remember that storm. When I read the weather report it said that it was supposed to start with rain and then switch over to freezing rain or sleet later in the evening.

I was supposed to work that day. Needless to say, I didn't go! I started out the back door and thank heaven I had one foot still inside the porch on the carpet. My foot went flying as soon as it hit the sidewalk and if I had had both feet outside I would have had a very nasty fall. As it was I nearly did the splits.

That was all it took for me! I turned around and went back in, called work and told them they could get someone else. No way was I going to drive on ice.

The manager said he would come and get me then bring me home that night. I told him that I was a good driver and if it was too slick for me to drive I certainly wasn't going to ride with anyone else.

That Friday there were notes in all of the paychecks. "When you are scheduled to work you are expected to be here regardless of the weather. Anyone calling in due to the weather will be terminated."

That was pretty much the worst we had this winter. That is until this past week!

We started with around a quarter of an inch of ice and then it dumped around ten inches of snow on top of it.

Schools were out every day last week and so far this week they have not only been on a two hour delay but also closed early both days. And they are on a two hour delay again tomorrow.

Nearly every road and even the Interstates from I-70 down were either closed or had only one lane open. It was coming down faster than the plows could remove it.

When they did finally get it plowed, they ended up plowing all of the driveways shut so no one could get out until they managed to shovel that massive mound out from the end of their drives. Amazing how ten inches of snow can suddenly become nearly three feet when it's all piled in one place.

Today we got some more but I'm not sure how much actually was new snow and how much was just blowing and drifting around from what we had before.

So I'm just keeping the fire going and watching the doggies to see how they do.

Stay warm up there (or down there as the case may be) and keep your ice to yourself please. This is one time sharing is highly overrated!

Kat

From what you said about the second ice storm, I think you're south of me. I'm in Fort Wayne. I'm not sure if they got more of that crap to the north of me or not lol

A few weeks ago we had some wickedly cold temps- wind chills were at -35 degrees. Of course, I had to work lol I went out to warm up the car and it just wouldn't turn over. I was irate. It was cold, very slick out- and my car decided to take a nap on me. I knew if I called work and told them the situation they would come and get me.... but I've been through this with them before...bringing me home is a whole different story (they care that I get there, don't care that I get home).

So, the alternative was calling into work and telling them I was sick/hurt. I'm rarely ever sick and didn't think they'd believe that anyway, so I told my boss that I fell on the deck and hurt my knee- I've had knee issues for many years and have fallen at work and messed up my knee more than once before, so that was something I knew they would believe. So, called my boss, told her I hurt my leg- no questions asked..I was playing hookie for the day lol That's the first time in over 13 years that I ever called into work when I wasn't actually sick/hurt lol.

I had the next few days scheduled off, so I went out and got a new battery for my car and everything is fine now lol.

Oh yeah, I'm way south of you. About thirty or so miles south east of Terre Haute to be exact. If you have ever been to Shakamak State Park then you're in my back yard so to speak. Great camping and fishing there.

That first storm in December really slammed the north while the second one last month hit the southern part of the state. I just hope that when all of this snow and ice melts we don't end up getting flooded like we did last year. Some people still haven't gotten cleaned up from that one.

I had to have an MRI done not too long after that hit. The lady that did the scan said she was in the office when it started flooding. They immediately closed down and just in the five minutes or so that it took them to get out to the parking lot for their cars, the water was already up to their waists.

She said that when she had seen pictures on tv of people on the roof of their houses in flooded areas, she couldn't ever figure out why. She thought they just ignored the warnings to get out and had waited too long. But now she saw firsthand just how fast water can come in and how easy it is to get caught where you can't leave.

Speaking of floods, how did you make out with all the water last summer? We were pretty lucky here. And by 'we', I mean us personally. Some folks just a few blocks away lost everything they owned.

Fortunately the town where we live sits on a hill. Our house is only a couple of blocks from the peak. So while the roads and ditches were overflowing just four blocks down from us, we stayed nearly high and dry. The ground was still soaked and the sump pump was working overtime, but nothing got into the house itself. We were blessed.

I've been up in your neck of the woods too. I used to go up there every year for the FW dog show. Nice little city you have there. Or at least it was the last time I was there. It's been a long while since I got that far north.

And speaking of north, you really didn't have to share your cold wave with us a few weeks ago! That was one time I wish you had been a bit more selfish lol.

Everyone was having trouble with their cars starting that week. Even people with brand new batteries couldn't get them to crank it was so cold. Can't say I blame them. Poor cars didn't want to go to work in that cold weather any more than we did.

If you have hurt your knee that many times at work I would say you're like me. Probably standing on concrete all day, walking on slippery wet floors and lifting things you probably shouldn't be lifting. When will we ever learn? Oh well. If I didn't work I wouldn't know what to do with myself.

But I know what I need to do now. Get to bed before the sun comes up. So I'll talk at you later.

Kat

The last "major" flooding we had was last February when we had a bunch of snow melt and rain on top of it- a lot of peoples homes flooded and there were many streets shut down since they were so full of water.

Over the summer we got a bit of flooding- just in the "normal" floding areas for the most part. Here's some 'before and after' shots of the flooding last summer-

This is a stream in Franke Park (next to the Ft Wayne Childrens Zoo). I took this shot from under the bridge before the flooding.
www.loveofbreeds.com/FreePhotos/Franke/10157Franke7.jpg


This is how the same stream looked during the flooding last summer.. this time I had to take the pic from ON the bridge since it was flooded lol

www.loveofbreeds.com/Photos/207.jpg
www.loveofbreeds.com/Photos/204.jpg

That's a stream that I normally walk across on the stones lol

My house has never flooded- even in the major floods we've had. We have 3 rivers here and I'm not far from one of them but I'm uphill thankfully.

It does sound as if we have the same work environment too- I'm on polished concrete all day and when it gets wet it's like an ice rink. The fun part is that my feet being in the snow walking dogs makes the floor wet, so it's slick and then I have to walk more dogs... not fun having a dog try to drag you when you have absolutly no traction lol When I had knee surgery several years ago my doctor told me to switch jobs since it's so hard on the knees, but I never did. Since the surgery I've hurt that knee several times again, and I'm working on trashing my other one. Not to mention that my shoulder now has a 1 inch seperation and my rotator is fried, and that shoulder tends to get dislocated often now....also all due to over 13 years working with dogs.


I think we may be in for another round of flooding now though- We have quite a bit of snow on the ground and it's all supposed to melt this weekend and we're going to get rain... not a good combination lol

Yeah, we already have flood warnings out by out local weather people down here. Between the rain coming in and all the snow we already have they said we are likely to get at least some minor flooding. But so far nothing from NOAA.

The only difference in us it would seem is that your knee damage is from pulling by the dogs whereas mine is from having to lift stuff I shouldn't have.

Doc has tried for four years now to get me on disability. I finally heard from them. I go to Indy on the 19th for my hearing. I'm just praying for a favorable outcome.

Even the two days a week I'm working now is getting to be way too much. I have already told my supervisor that on next month's schedule he's going to have to take me down to only one day. That sure will make it hard to pay bills though if the disability is denied. But we'll see what happens.

Speaking of work, I need to get going. Noon is coming pretty quick. So I'll talk at you later. Take care up there and don't send too much water my way will ya? We had so much of it last year that even the fishies weren't sure what to do with all of it.

Kat

OMG!!!!