In the past whenever there has been mention of icestorms- I've thought- big deal. We'll lose our power for a few hours, the ice will melt and all will be fine so long as we stay off the roads.
Such was not the case on December 11, 2008. The ice began falling around 8:00pm. The lights flickered on and off for a couple hours until finally going off for good at 10:30. After reading by flashlight for a short while, I rolled over and went fast asleep.
At 1:30 Friday morning, I was awakened by a loud crash which shook our house. It was just the first of many crashes, crunches and booms that were going to occur for the next 6 hours. These were the longest and darkest 6 hours that I can ever remember. I pride myself on being able to sleep through anything but the sheer terror of what was falling outside our house was enough to keep me awake all night long. A half hour after I woke up, JP stirred and got up with me so we could assess any damage we might be able to see through the dark night. The crash that awakened JP was a huge part of our neighbors tree falling across our street. We saw headlights approaching down the street and then turning around as the street was impassable. A short while later a police officer arrived and assessed the situation. While he was there, he crunched through the 2" deep slush on the side street pulling tree branches and debris to the side of the road as that street was impassable as well. From what we could see from the windows thanks to the shining blue lights and the police spotlight, two sections of our picket fence had been crushed to the ground by a 10-12" caliper tree branch that broke off one of our Silver Maples (which was just one of the 5 trees we would have liked to have cut down this past year if we'd had a few extra thousand dollars lying around). Mother Nature had decided to do some pruning for us instead.
We looked at a clock at 2:30am and I couldn't believe it was still so early in the night and that daylight was still hours away. Kylie joined us in our room for a while and eventually she and I moved to Emma's room because her tossing and turning was keeping JP awake. I knew there was no chance I'd fall asleep with the continuous crashing outside. I just lay awake wondering which tree had fallen and what it had hit. Each time the ice covered branches struck the ground, all the ice shattered which made the damage sound much worse than it really was as I realized once daylight of morning finally arrived. After quickly surveying the damage from every window of the house, thankfully it appeared that most of the damage was superficial. We will definitely need to have all the Silver Maples taken down now as there isn't too much left of the 70' tall trees except bare trunks and a few branches. JP ended up having to cut down most of one of my favorite trees, an 80 year old Crabapple at the top of the driveway as it was split and was blocking the garage. Ironically, just the night before this one, I had awakened and sat bolt upright after a terrible nightmare that my stepfather had cut down this very tree and I was fuming that he would do such a thing to such a beautiful tree! We also lost a really large Burning Bush outside the play room which I'm hoping will somehow manage to grow back as they are now prohibited to plant in Massachusetts but I love them all the same. Other than that, despite the fact that every square foot of our yard was buried in trees, tree branches and debris, we manage to weather the storm ok.
Our once beautiful Crabapple which blocked our exit from the garage until JP chopped part of it down.....
Our newly "pruned" Silver Maples:
The view into our side garden:
Our family room was 52 degrees when we woke up and JP quickly made a fire to take the chill off. The kids couldn't understand why the TV and the lights wouldn't work. Fortunately, we have a gas stove so we were at least able to make a hot breakfast for everyone and some coffee for us. I called my parents to see what the news was saying about the extent of the damage so we could figure out when power might come back on. The news was not good. A State of Emergency had been declared and they were guessing that it could take at least 2 to 3 days for electricity to be restored. Sitting at home with 4 kids under 4 without any heat or electricity for that long a time was out of the question. I packed everyone up and we evacuated to Norwell..... JP stayed behind to begin (and finish!) the clean up and to protect the house.
Here it is now, 8:00 Sunday night and JP is still home alone without any power. He mentioned that the family room was 46 degrees this morning when he woke up. Brrrr...... I'm hoping tomorrow we can head home but not until we hear that the heat and electricity are back on!
Edited Tuesday, December 16:
I'm glad to say that we made it home yesterday. Power came back on around 7am. The house was still a bit cold at 3pm yesterday but it takes a long time to warm up a big old house that had cooled off to a chilly 42 degrees!
Driving around the streets in our town and the surrounding towns is eerie. There are downed trees and branches along every roadside and piles of branches everywhere..... Crazy!
Today I spent some time picking up off the ground shattered Christmas ball ornaments that had been hung on the garland along the fence. I tried to restring the garland the best I could but one set of lights had been snapped and although I thought the other set was ok, tonight when we tried to turn them on they didn't work so I'll try to figure that at tomorrow. Tonight they are forecasting snow which I will take any day over ice.
