Some more ice pics

I cropped my ice photos and did a few creative things to them. Here are some more from the storm last Tuesday.

Ice storm and no school

Yesterday, Monday February 16, we had a cold rain which turned to a sleety-chilly ice pellets all night. Of course the trees and power lines were immediately blanketed with a thick coat of ice. At 10 PM the power went out.

I had been looking at the Georgia Power Company's outage map and had seen the large outage to my south by a half mile, and the large outage to my east by a quarter mile, so I had no illusions this time that the power would go out. We usually escape here in this lucky location, but not this time, it seemed.

So I dug out the kerosene lamp, trimmed the wick and filled the well. I got the flashlight out, inventoried the priority food in the fridge, and made sure I had all else ready in case. A few minutes later after preparations were complete it did go out. By then it was 10 pm and all I had to do is go to bed.

It was a restless night, with the creaking of overloaded branches hovering low over the roof. At 2:15am a nearby transformer blew. The light was white and bright like a mini-atomic bomb, and the noise, despite being at least a mile off, was very loud.

At that point the power had been out for 4 hours, and I decided that with a nearby transformer gone that it would be many more hours before it came back on. I got up and dumped out sheets and towels from a plastic bin stored in the bedroom closet, and loaded all the prepared food I had in the fridge such as quiche and potato soup etc, plus all the dairy. I tucked it outside the door. Temperatures were hovering just at freezing and the bin being nestled against the wall with the residual interior heat coming out, I knew that the food would not freeze.

At 10:30am the power clicked back on. At one point, 180,000 were without, mainly Atlanta and NE GA, where I am. There are still many without power but with the ice falling off the branches I hope the worst is over. We had no school today due to the fact that one school had no power and many secondary roads were filled with downed power lines and branches, making safe transport of children difficult.

I walked around the yard this morning and took some pictures. Here they are.

Pax, the ridiculously named winter ice storm

Well the ridiculously named snowstorm Pax (means peace) is here. The weather men have been predicting it for days and it is living up to its hype. Cold, wind, snow, sleet, and ice. We've got it all here in GA and to prove it many thousands are without power. I got up early and took a hot shower right away and made coffee. Phew, at least I got that in before the power went out. Next in line for important duties was to post the blog entry for The End Time, and while I was at it I wrote a second one. Phew.

It wasn't long before the temps tumbled and the ticking of ice against the glass appeared. If there were 8 tiny reindeer I'd have jumped aboard and headed for Key West. I thought I left the more severe weather behind me in Maine when I moved here, but that was not to be, at least today. Ah well, we have had mild winters for the last 7 years so I can't really complain.

They say that the worst of the storm is on its way. Over 100,000 Georgians are without power as I write this, and the numbers are rising fast. So when they say the worst is yet to come for the Athens area, I believe it. I have lived through enough ice storms to have developed a healthy hate respect for them.

I've filled my sun shower, drawn water into three jugs totaling I'd estimate about 10 gallons, made food, gotten cat food and litter, batteries for the weather emergency radio, have a hurricane lantern and oil plus candles. I'm physically ready but not emotionally. I dread the tree limbs over the house and the pops and smashes through the night that indicate falling limbs and trees. I dread the ice and the cold...and the worry about pipes freezing. It is 27 degrees but the real feel is 10. I am sure the aging pipes feel every degree of that cold.

But on the plus side, there is no school, I have books, and craft projects I can do, power for now, food, cats to entertain me, and close neighbors. All is well and though Pax is ineptly named, I do fee a peace. I won't say Pax be with you, because it is predicted to barrel its way up the eastern coast of the US, but I hope  you're prepared and do feel a peace - that spring is almost here.

Ice, Georgia style

Anything frozen is an attraction to a Georgian. Ice doesn't last long down here, so when I saw that the edge of a puddle in my yard had frozen overnight, I took some microphotos of it.

Snow coming today

The big BIG story is that we are going to get snow today. Doom. Armageddon. 1-2 inches. Now, snow here is not unheard of. An elderly friend of mine says that back in the day they used to get a couple of good storms each winter, bringing two to three inches. However there have not been any storms, not even any snow making it to the ground, for the last few years.

This is the third winter I've been in North Georgia and once, in the first winter in 2007, I had to scrape ice off my windshield, using only my credit card to do it. That's about it for wintry precipitation.

So this winter weather system that is already dumping snow in ARK, TN and Miss now heading our way is freaking out the Georgians. The 11 o'clock news led with the ubiquitous news story about the weather, first showing the heavy machinery at the Atlanta airport. "Look!", the news guy said, pointing excitedly through the chain link fence, "these trucks that can be outfitted with sand and salt!" Next, showing radar maps with ominous looking swirls of fast moving clouds traveling over boxed off counties in the path of this coming destruction, the weather forecaster breathlessly described what happens when snow comes down; "Bridges freeze first, so watch out!" Then the news crew went to the grocery store, where people usually go to buy bread and milk and water, the news guy explained. Yes, he actually explained why so many people were at the store putting bread and milk into their carts. "Buggies", sorry, that is the correct terminology down here. And then he repeated the bread-milk-water survival list.

Incredibly he chose the one person in the store to interview who was doubting if not skeptical that anything would even make it to the ground. Rather than interview another person, they just put up a ticker at the bottom of the screen with her name, "Jane Smith" and below that, "Not preparing for storm."

I laughed so hard I almost dumped my laptop of my stomach. It just looked so funny ... "Not preparing for storm." LOL. She said she will believe it when she sees it.

I wonder if she was from Maine.

Today was 67 degrees and by the weekend it will be 70 so the likelihood of any white stuff hanging around is less than zero, but I know the locals get excited at the prospect, they love snow because it's so rare and always sort of a festive event.

Left, my previous domicile in Maine home of car-burying snow. Today, I'm not scared of driving in the wind-driven icy snow. I'm more scared of everybody else who will be out there, newbies to the asphalt realities of black ice.