Ice Storm of 2007

We just went through a major winter storm that dropped a lot of heavy snow on people north of us, and a lot of rain on people south of us.  Here in the Quad Cities we were stuck right in the middle as it dropped a lot of freezing rain on us.  Coupled with winds that had gusts over 40 mph, it created a lot of havoc yesterday.

Power lines were down and at one point tens of thousands of people throughout the area were without power.  We were lucky - we only lost our cable service for a while last night.  But it could have been a lot worse.

We have a huge maple tree that sits in the yard of Jane's old house that we just love in the summertime.  It provides an immense amount of shade for us when we're sitting on our deck.  There's one large branch that comes out and hovers just over our main utility lines for power, telephone and cable.  As you can see in the picture (enlarge by clicking on it) the branch was precariously close to hitting the power wire during the height of the ice storm yesterday.

The big maple tree lost a lot of branches from the weight of the ice coupled with the high winds.  Here's a shot of the downed branches in our back yard over to Eric and Molly's place.  Notice the large branch balancing precariously on their power line.  They never did lose their power, though.

Here's a closer shot that I took this morning of the big limb still balancing on the power line to Eric and Molly's house.  The power company is so back logged that they told them it may be a day or two before they're able to get over and get it down. 

Thankfully, our big maple in front of our house didn't lose the big branches like the one in back did.  But it did lose enough.  A couple hit the roof just above my office when I was sitting in there yesterday afternoon.  The bang was loud enough to make me jump, but when I went out to see how big they were (right), I could only imagine what it would have sounded like had one of those big ones out back nailed the house. 

We were able to get out about 6 p.m. last night to drive around (after getting the ice off of my car).  It was dark in a number of areas, but the sky would occasionally light up with the blue-orange hue of transformers exploding, and later in the evening with lightning from thunder snow that came through the area. 

We ended up meeting our friends, Scott and Marcia Schroeder, and their daughter, Angela, for dinner at Granite City.  As we were eating dinner (I had a reuben topped with cole slaw instead of sauerkraut - it was very good), Marcia said, "Oh, gosh.  Look outside." 

I turned and it looked like a blizzard outside.  By the time we finished our meal and got outside, it had snowed two inches and it was coming down in barrels.  Getting home was a little treacherous - the sleet we'd had in the late afternoon has actually provided some traction over the ice from the earlier freezing rain.  But the heavy wet snow made it sloppy and slick.

We made it home OK via a number of darkened streets in Davenport.  In fact, the power was out for a large area in our neighborhood west of our house.  But when we came down the street we could easily see the front porch light on and we knew we were still fine.

We went to bed last night not knowing if we'd lose power in the night from the heavy snow coupled with the freezing rain already on branches and lines.  I woke up about 4 a.m. this morning and looked out the window.  The big branch that looked like it could come down at any moment was back to it's normal place.  I looked at the remote thermometer in our "lodge" and it said 34 degrees.  It had warmed up and the ice had melted off the trees. 

This morning, it's 35 degrees.  There's little to no wind.  A lot of the wet heavy snow that fell last night is now slush.  I'm going out to use the snow blower in a little bit and it's just going to be a sloppy mess.  Then I'm going to have to deal with the picking up of branches after that. 

But, it could have been a lot worse...

Comments

[Anne T]

My brother lives just north of La Crosse in Trempealeau. They got 25 inches!!! He was still digging out when I talked to him on Monday!