Northeast Ice Storm

I am 🙂 The house is nice and toasty. I just need to watch out for stupid drivers where the lights are out, keep the generator filled with gas, and watch for falling ice encrusted tree limbs, branches and twigs… and keep mom from going nuts with no tv or internet! 😀

I have a bunch of books to read and stuff to paint, so I’m all good 🙂

Everyone is helping out anyone without a generator. One neighbor just got home from the hospital a few days ago (heart bypass surgery…. he’ll be 90 in January). They are nice and toast thanks to the neighbor at the end of the alley. Another house however, has their tree down, which tore their line out of the house! He was asked if he wanted to have that tree trimmed back over the summer and he declined. He took off to FL two days ago too. I think he will be regretting that decision! :shrug:

No worries. The generator stays outside under some protective covering from the elements 🙂

Off to go drive home!

Thanks everyone for the well-wishes! After staying at work late to get my banking and email stuff done after a rough night running the data center solo (just before the year end freeze too *grumble*), I got home around 3 am to find that the power and cable/internet were back. The cable/internet bounced over the weekend though. It appears to be back up now though, but with ice still on the trees, anything is still possible as trees snap back into place when the ice comes off.

My brother in Westminster,MA still has no power. He drove to RI to his father-in-laws to borrow their generator, get some containers of water, and has made at least one extra trip back there to get more gasoline for the generator. They aren’t expected to get power back until Wed. No one else has gas near him (he’s near NH and with NH out of power too… nothing in Worcester either). Other relatives have been in and out with power and cable/internet/phones. I have to say I’m glad we don’t have our phone through the internet. That is a relief! Some relatives only a few miles away are still without power and aren’t expected to have power until Tues/Wed. At the end of the block and a house down, there is a good section of a tree down, blocking the road with the powerline it brought down. It still hasn’t been taken care of.

The next town below me has had a state of emergency. There are towns not too far away with total driving bans. As of yesterday, some hadn’t even seen a single cherry picker come through. That’s bad. I know this will take time to clean up and we have gotten more ice storms than usual in recent years, but ever since things Niagara Mohawk got bought out by National Grid, the service went all to hell. NiMo had concern for quality of service. NG is more profit driven. Their employees, even those that worked for NiMO have stated such. They hire contractors rather than keep the workforce and they don’t do the regular maintenance on the lines (trimming trees, replacing poles that are about to fall, etc.) anywhere near as regularly. Outages on average have gone WAY up since they took over – more frequent and longer in duration. Luckily, only a few people have died, I think all due to carbon monoxide poisoning (using heaters or generators either in their home or a connecting structure). I just wish people would remember to treat intersections without power as a four-way stop and not just fly through!

On the brighter side, Saratoga Springs had power, so I went shopping yesterday with Mom, then out later with Dad, to assist with parental holiday shopping (I’m Switzerland when it comes to helping my parents buy presents for each other!). Helped pass the day. I also snapped a bunch of photos. Everything looks really pretty with the ice coating everything. I wish it looked like that all the time during the winter, but it is still dangerous and to be respected. It’s weird to hear the crinkle cracking of the branches in the dark, since it could be a limb or branch coming down! The last storm a year or two ago, I walked around town after dark and enjoyed it with only a few odd lights on, like the one at the rear of the firehouse! It was neat driving home on Friday night/Saturday morning too! Almost like driving in a new place! Very peaceful and pretty with the full moon and so few lights in so many areas! It was kind of exciting, even at that hour! If I wasn’t so tired and side roads unknowns with regards to powerlines and trees, I probably would have been happy to drive around more. It’s nice not having all those business lights on unnecessarily with their light pollution! Listened to Coast to Coast on the way home too! Full-moon Friday! *w00t*

I almost finished another pyo too. It was an exciting and productive weekend!

I’ll post pics tomorrow if it is quiet at work (hoping it will be with the freeze in effect and my coworker should have power and be back at work).