My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family. I hope their challenging ordeal will be over soon and the rest of the winter will be kind to them.

Gee Caroline, I can imagine how worried you were for your family not being able to get in touch with them. I am sorry your brother lost his house but thank goodness he and your SIL came out of it safely.

Sending good thoughts for your family and hugs to you.

Anne

Wow, that's absolutely horrible! My church just had a disaster preparedness workshop last week- we're in an earthquake/volcano/flood zone, so who knows what can happen. I just said some prayers for all of you out there!

Blessings,
Haley

I still remember the week without heat at the holidays when I was a girl about 1949. It must have been Thanksgiving, and my grandmother and aunt visited us. We had a horrid ice storm, and so no heat for a week because the furnace thermostat required electricity to turn on the furnace.

Trees broke and took down wires with them, and then the ice on the wires made the wires break too. Live wires were down everywhere and the public were warned not to go outside.

We had coal to burn in the fireplace, pulled all the living room furniture up into a tight semicircle around it. My younger sister came down with mumps or chicken pox and was kept on the couch there during the day. We luckily had a gas stove and food enough. I remember dressing for bed in the kitchen where mom kept the doors shut from the rest of the house to preserve heat and the oven open for heat. Then my aunt and my mom would escort us up to bed one at a time, pull down the blankets and run a hot frying pan or pancake griddle over the sheet to warm the bed, and then quickly tuck us in. It was so cold one night that they woke us up about midnight to come downstairs and have a bowl of oatmeal with rasins and brown sugar and milk and then did the tucking in ritual again with the hot pans.

We all still remember that storm. I can imagine the adults were worried, but it did seem like an adventure to us kids.

((((Caroline and her extended family))))

Your conditions are so much harsher that what we experienced after the Loma Prieta earthquake in '89. We didn't have power or water for 10+ days and not much radio reception (and before cell phones), so the outside world knew more about what was going on than we did.

However, the ice and snow aspect of your family's situation is so much more dangerous than anything we went through, so I wish you all well and keep warm.

Oh Caroline, I am so sorry to hear all of this. I live in Kentucky and it has been bad, but it seems like nothing compared to what your family is going through.
Prayers are going up for you and yours, take care and be safe

My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family. The weather ordeal alone was horrible, but the sorrow too, oh my goodness. I just don't know what to say except I am so sorry for all they have been through and the emotional stress you have been through.
(((((((( Caroline and family )))))))))

Linda

Lots of prayers for your family Caroline. I know I'd be a mess if it was my family and I couldn't find out anything. I'm glad you did finally hear something.
Leslie

(((Caroline and Family)))

Thinking of your family. As my dh said the other day....seems Ok and Ar. Mo are getting ice storms regulary every year now so everyone should get a generator...we now have 2 because of the one in 2007 here and then last year when we were working in Mo. we had to buy another one so this year we had 2 and only lost our power for about 4 hours.....Saw our OG &E trucks heading to Ar. yesterday so hopefully they get everyone up and running fast...we went 14t days the last 2 years with out power just the generators and it is nerve wracking and I can't imange losing my home after suffering throufh the ice storm first...Stacy

I'm so glad that everyone is OK, Caroline, and I'm really sorry to hear about the house burning. What caused that, do they know? I am hearing about a lot of people having damage right around the electric meter and not being able to get power restored until they can hire a licensed electrician to fix that for them. I guess there's quite a waiting list for that, too.

We still have neighbors without power, but they are running their generator every day and getting by. I'm so thankful that our power is restored and life is easy again, but we did OK without it, it's just pretty boring when everything you normally do requires electricity. Oil lamps to read by, that's not a lot of fun, either, but it's better than going to bed at 6 PM. :)

I hope your family is back to normal ASAP and that the house rebuild goes smoothly, if that's the course they choose to take. At least everyone is alive and well. That's the main thing.

Thanks for the updates. I'm off to the store today, first time I'll be away from the house in 12 days. I sure hope they have some batteries now, they were out the other day when Woody went and I need to get new ones.

Oh gosh. Caroline I'm so sorry. You must have been frantic! I didn't know you had family in those areas.
Sending my best thoughts for you and your loved ones!Lots of prayers for them also. The cloud will lift and the sun WILL come out again.
(((Carol)))

That sounds like a lot to bear. Sending good thoughts and prayers for them.

I had a cousin who used to live in Mountain Home, she lives in Searcy now.

OMG....((((Caroline and her extended family))))

My mother in Buffalo lost her electricity for nine days in October 2006 after a terrible ice storm. Everyone lost trees, the ice coated them while they were still full of leaves and the weight brought down thousands of trees. She lost her favorite ornamental plum tree. That city is still removing and replanting the damaged/dead trees.

caroline..what i've done in the past is check either local tv stations, or newspapers, online, for info...while you don't get the direct contact with loved ones, it's saved me a LOT of worry...

prayers are on the way...

Caroline,I have cousins in Mt. Home. Called one of them Sat. & for whatever reason, they were one of a few homes in their immediate neighborhood with power. He said their home was the Public Shower :-) Siblings, neices, nephews, friends. Anyone needing a shower was welcome. One of his dau lives about 50 mi W of Mt. Home & was told maybe a month!! before her family had power back.

I'm so sorry to hear of your bro loosing his home.....but also thankful neither were hurt. Do they know yet what caused the fire?

Having "lived" thru our ice storm of 2000 I can understand what your family hads gone thru I tried to start an emergency preparedness forum on Garden Web but it reallly didn't go anywhere finally on the organizing the Hom forum something got posted but as you can see didn't go anywhere. I'd like to see a forum like this and maybe now is a good time to get one started maybe let Garden Web know
did't meant to steal your thread

Here is a link that might be useful: Emergency Preparedness PAGE 2 - Organizing the Home Forum -

Claire de luna firsst had a posting on this subject and I'll add the link and also post it to anew thread to see if anyone isinterested

Here is a link that might be useful: Emergency Preparedness page one

Hugs and prayers for all those affected by the ice storm.
((((Caroline and family))))

Sending prayers for your family.

Thanks to each of you for all the kind responses and prayers.

I managed to get some food delivered to my aunt today (Amazing what unlimited long distance and a credit card can do!). It wasn't a lot, and it wasn't fancy, but she has some healthy, nutritious, easy to heat (or not) meals and water now, probably enough for 10 days. That should hold her until she can get transport into town.

Some of the phones are out again, and nephew, and one brother are still without power. Niece had power long enough to check her house (rented) and give the kids hot showers. She sounded "refreshed." She received a delayed Christmas $ gift from me, and immediately gave it to her parents (the fire victims.) She's my good girl.

DB and SIL couldn't get the fire report until this afternoon, (volunteer fire departments and the members' phones were out again). The Red Cross provided his nebulizer and her blood pressure meds and gave them a small amount of emergency cash, for which they are very thankful. They left messages with the insurance company. Their home was a mobile home, but they were insured. I don't know yet if the contents were covered.

I'll be posting on the "Emergency Preparedness" thread when I have more wits about me.

Thanks again for all the kind posts, and please keep my family, and all the still-suffering storm victims, in your prayers.