Oklahoma Ice Storm Update

16 years ago

They said on the news there are around half a million homes without power and 14 dead so far. A State of Emergency has been declared for all 77 counties.

DH and I are very fortunate to have only had some freezing rain and sleet yesterday and some today but not non-stop like the OKC and Tulsa folks. More is expected to move in tonight and continue through Wednesday, but there is a chance temperatures will rise enough for it to fall as plain old rain. The white arrow shows you about where we live.

Will the other Okies please check in?

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Comments (26)

Kathsgrdn
16 years ago
I hope everyone stays safe.
ntt_hou
16 years ago
Wish only the best to all of you and let us pray for the better.

I'm in Houston. One day is 80 degrees and the next day is 60. But I'm not complaining for we've been very fortunate. Unlike the other US states, you had so many weather disasters in this past couple of years that I have not seen in the past 35 yrs. I live in this country. When I realize how blessed and fortunate we have been here, we think and pray for all of you that aren't.

May God bless and watch over all of you.
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Comments (52)
Here at our house we were without power for 11 days plus 7 hours...from 11:30AM Jan. 27th., to 6:30PM Feb. 6th. Since we have a wood heating stove, I did all my cooking on it. I had 5 oil lamps, and plenty of oil. I used the closed off spare bedroom for a refrigerator. It is the farthest from the heat, and kept items in good shape. I had to throw out a lot of frozen foods. My trickiest job was bringing in our firewood. The woodshed is only about 25 feet from the back of the house. I spread ashes on my path. It is open front and back. The front has the slab wood. The back has the rounds. One trunk of our 4-trunk River Birch bowed down to the ground in front of the shed, closing off that access. I had to pass between an ice laden Red Oak and the shed to get back to the round wood. I could reach across and get some slab wood also, so that was okay. It was a little scary with breaking limbs overhead, and the crashing ice! But my guardian angel kept anything from hitting me. :-) Our trees took a severe blow, but our house and out buildings were unscathed. The 4-trunk Birch lost 2 of it's trunks. The Heritage Birch in front was bowed to the ground, and frozen into the ground ice. It was not bouncing back up as it ought to, when the ice was almost all off. I decided if I pulled it lose from the ground ice that would release it. WOW! Did it ever release it! I almost went up with it! I laughed like an idiot! It is still slightly bowed, But I am hoping it will straighten up eventully. It did in the past. The Tulip Poplar took the worst hit. It is a large tree, and it lost at least half of it's canopy. I am considering having it cut down. The problem is...there is not a clear space to drop it. We have a bunch of hanging limbs, in yard situations. I have not approached anyone about taking them down. Anyway, we (hubby and I) survived okay. I think I have been suffering post traumatic depression, but this too shall pass. All in all, we were much more fortunate than many.
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My family in the ice storm, long week of suffering, long
Q
Comments (22)
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.
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Our ice storm has started...
Q
Comments (32)
Hi, all. We've kept our power, but I've been down most of the weekend with a migraine. *sigh* One of the OKC stations is reporting 120,000 without power in Oklahoma right now, and 10 dead so far in vehicle accidents. We have really dodged a bullet here in NW Oklahoma so far. They say the moisture will move northward today, and another batch will move in tomorrow - so we may not be out of the woods yet. We are grateful that we only had a little bit of freezing rain, a moderate amount of sleet and frigid temps so far, and we are "feeling the pain" of all those who have been hit so hard. DHs boss called last night and told him not to go to work today. That's only the second time in 20 years that's ever happened. All of the schools are closed, of course. Hope everyone else is safe and warm.
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Ice Storm Check-In Thread
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Comments (71)
Kim, Hooray for the miraculous recovery. I had a lemon garden for a couple of years and it was one of the most fun things I've ever done. It was so fun to hunt down all the plants that had lemon scents, lemon colors and lemony names. I still have my potted lemon tree. Don't forget Lemon Boy tomato for your lemon garden! Hazel, There are people who take theme gardens to extremes that I never would, but that is partly because I grow so many edibles. Many (though not all) theme gardens are built around a backbone of small trees, shrubs and perennials that fit the theme, with annuals as needed. Within the confines of growing an edible garden with only a few perennials on the edges, I have grown rainbow gardens many times---where each raised bed featured one color of the rainbow, in the same order that the colors appear in the rainbow. I did that for 4 or 5 years and it really broadened my exposure to veggies, herbs and flowers of every color. Of course, the colors green and blue were the most challenging as this was well before we had actual blue tomatoes, but I still grew an old heirloom variety of tomato called "Blue" though it certainly did not have blue fruit. It had fruit that was blackish-pinkish-purplish and wasn't worth eating either. I'd like to do it again sometimes, but it does take an enormous amount of planning, plus an enormous amount of seed-starting to have plants from every color of the rainbow. Still, I'm glad I did it. I'd never grown many green flowers before that (only Envy zinnia) and found it fun to grow Bells of Ireland, Green Wizard rudbeckia and green-flowering gladiolus. I was younger then and had a lot more energy and spent a lot more time in the garden in the heat of the summer. I've also grown a Chocolate Garden at times, featuring plants that produced dark flowers, dark foliage or dark produce (Chocolate popcorn, chocolate tomatoes like Cherokee Chocolate and Chocolate Stripes, Chocolate Habanero peppers, etc), dark colored flowers (basically dark red or maroonish flowers that could sort of pass for chocolate), and chocolate-scented flowers. Just thinking about all the work I did with those theme gardens in those years makes me tired now. I wonder where I found the energy back then? Dawn
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nodakgal
16 years ago
Was it Tulsa they showed on the news, green blades of grass encased in ice. It actually crunched as you walked on it!

Stay safe everyone!
summer_tx
16 years ago
That storm is so terrible. I'm very glad you are out of it's path so far Rita. We've had over an 1" of rain today and temps in the 30's. I'm afraid to see the massive amount of ice that will form by morning.

OMG, all of those poor people without electricity. That could get more deadly with those cold temps.
glenda_al
16 years ago
Be safe!
Be careful, if you are out and about!
kathi_mdgd
16 years ago
I saw that on the news.Stay safe everyone.
Kathi
alisande
16 years ago
Wow--do you get this sort of thing often? I didn't realize Oklahoma was likely to see that much ice. (Can you tell I barely passed Geography?)
jel48
16 years ago
The places where my daughter and son in law work, in Tulsa, shut down for the day. As did most businesses in the area, according to my daughter.
ronf_gw
16 years ago
I'm glad to hear you're ok in OK.
Ron
patti43
16 years ago
Glad your okay so far, Rita. Hope it stays that way. Doesn't Moni live around Tulsa? Has anyone heard from her today. Y'all stay safe and warm (and also inside).
lydia1959
16 years ago
Glad to hear you are okay Rita. MO got hit hard too...most of our little town was without electricity yesterday but we were spared. There is about a half inch of ice on all the tree limbs and power lines - tomorrow is supposed to be in the 40's, so hopefully the ice will melt.

Be careful everybody!
minnie_tx
16 years ago
Take care all who are in its path. I remember the ice storm we had starting on Christmas Day in 2001 here in Texarkana Tx. no fun at all. no heat no electricity no phone no water no flushing etc.
minnie_tx
16 years ago
It was Christmas Day in 2000
micke
16 years ago
we are in MO. Just spent most of the day w/o electric, trees are falling all around us right now:( we had 2 wires down nearby, so scary! It is raining now, but the ice is still thick on everything. We went and bought a kerosene heater but could not find kerosene anywhere. We drove over 2 downed power lines while we were out (never done that before!)
Cherryfizz
16 years ago
Glad you are Ok Rita. You guys sure got hit and so did some other Midwestern States. I was worried about Lydia until I saw her post after watching the news about the ice there. I have cousins that live in St. Louis.

Our last ice storm was about 7 years ago and our power was out for almost a week but I remember how beautiful it sounded outside from the noise of the frozen tree limbs. I was lucky I had a working fireplace and a barbeque to cook on. Not as prepared for one now as I was then - no barbeque and no wood for the fireplace.

We are expecting more ice tomorrow. We just had a slippery coating - nothing like yours.

Hope you all stay safe and warm.

Anne
mcmann
16 years ago
Please be careful out there - I was watching the news this morning about the ice storm and it really is awful. I hope it doesn't last too much longer or cause any more damage.
ladonna
16 years ago
Im not a okie, but a texan, near the Okla. panhandle, and its really bad here too, with ice.
Stay safe everyone.
FlamingO in AR
16 years ago
I hope everyone affected by this storm stays safe. We had a touch of ice on our cooler/higher areas yesterday but the roads were OK.

Stay home, and stay warm!
anettemartinrn
16 years ago
Hey Minnie,

didnt realize you were in this area. i live about 7 miles outside of texarkana on the arkansas side. that was a bad time, i was out of electricity for 14 days. best wishes to the oklahoma/kansas/missouri people.

anette
okwriter
Original Author
16 years ago
Well, we have power but my satellite Internet is spotty. I had a whole reply typed out here and lost it. *sigh*

I woke up to THUNDER at 6:00 this morning!! Rain and more rain - and we are right at the freezing point. As long as we keep getting a little warmer, we can deal with the rain. Our gutters are a mess - full of ice and melting icicles hanging from them, and some of our trees are feeling the stress. OKC and Tulsa were hit so hard - the TV is saying literally one-third of the state is without power, and it may be 7-10 days getting everyone back up again.

Here in NW Oklahoma, we are feeling SO very fortunate! We got hit hard with an ice storm five years ago, and it took our county six months to get rid of all the brush/trees. Parts of NE Oklahoma got hit hard last January, so they certainly didn't need it.

I'll say a prayer for all of you who have felt or will feel this storm. It's a doozy!
evatx
16 years ago
My former DIL and her children live near Tulsa. I'll call her later to ck. on all of them. Between the tornadoes and ice storms, they often have to cope with bad weather.
parhelia
16 years ago
Still no power in parts of Norman, including my house. We didn't have power here at work yesterday, but we do today. I'm so glad to be in a WARM building! We went out last night, and it looks like 80 percent of the businesses in town are open, as the roads aren't that bad unless you're dodging tree limbs.

Nearly every single tree in town is split in half, or worse. My huge sycamore might not have anything left but the central trunk by the time this is all over. I can't even bear to look at the poor thing. *sigh*

Julie
kim_okla
16 years ago
I guess there is no good time for this but we have finals this week. I am trying to prepare the final which stresses me enough.

My furnace went out Saturday so I had power but no heat. Electric mattress pad was a gem. I got a new furnace yesterday. They finished about 8:30 last night and the house did get warm and cozy and then the power went off.

Monday one of my trees split and pulled down the Cox Cable line. Now the dogs can't go out the back door and Cox won't come until Wednesday.

I'm really trying not to be whiney. I know I am luckier than many. I mainly need to get done with this final.
Happy_Go_Lucky_Gayle
16 years ago
I'm so sorry you are having to deal with this awful storm. I have several relatives in Norman, Durant and Lindsey OK.

Gayle
parhelia
16 years ago
Good luck with your final, Kim. Is there any chance you can study on campus? If you go to the Norman campus, my roommate tells me there are lots of tables in one of the lower levels of Sarkey's. She goes there sometimes to study.
kim_okla
16 years ago
No I'm giving the final. The secretary stuff, prepare, copy, number. It's so important, it makes me nervous.

Oklahoma Ice Storm Update

Comments (26)

Kathsgrdn

ntt_hou

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Oklahoma Ice Storm Update

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