So picture this, early on a Monday morning in the dead of winter, I hear a loud crack outside our window. I get up to look out and see that an ice storm has passed through during the night, not unusual in Oklahoma. The ice has so thoroughly coated my neighbor’s tree in his back yard that limbs are starting crack off of it. I dully hope that none hit my fence and go back to sleep for another 30 minutes before I have to get up and get ready for work. During that 30 minutes, I keep hearing the sound of cracking wood all across the neighborhood. You know how amplified sound seems when there is snow or ice floating in the sky? Add to the sound of wood giving way and you have a pretty surreal moment while you are shaving.

Luckily for our house, we only have one tree in our front yard and it isn’t too big, so I’m not concerned about damage to the house and I just continue on with my morning rituals. Right as I’m brushing my teeth and getting ready to head out the door, the power in the house goes out. Not entirely unexpected and I’ve pretty much finished everything I needed to do so off to work I head. The roads are suprising clear, but everywhere I look, I see tree limbs on the ground. It looks like a bomb went off all around the neighborhood. Throughout the day I talk to my wife, the power is still not on in the house and now her parent’s have lost their power. It becomes rapidly apparent that this is no ordinary ice storm. It is one of the hardest hitting storms in the city’s history, at least in regards to damage to trees and powerlines. At the height of it, over half the people in the Tulsa metro area (with a population of 500,000+) will be without power. Read more »

Posted: April 25th, 2008 under Family, Stress.
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