Lessons Learned on the Farm

• Feb. 2, 2009 - Lessons Learned from the Ice Storm

Well it's been a bit exciting in our neck of the woods what with the Ice Storm of the Century and all. Our area was coated with ice and although it was quite perty. The trees couldn't bear the weight - so they came down - and so did the power and phone lines!

We actually had some really good warnings that this might happen though and when they started saying that this could even be worse that the storm of 94, my family started getting things ready.

We already had a kerosene heater and a little bit of kerosene, but Tony went ahead an filled up 2 more containers.

He had the boys dig through our camping supplies in the garage to get out the cookstove, extra containers of fuel, and flashlights.

Then they made a last minute run to stock up on a few things - mainly batteries.

I must say that I thought Mel would have been proud of how we weathered the storm.

The kerosene heater did an awesome job of keeping our home warm & cozy. Tony and the boys *did* get more kerosene when we started getting low, but then our electric came on the very next day.
If you live where it gets cold, buy yourself a nice kerosene heater when they're on clearance. And then buy 2 kerosene containers, fill them, and store them safely on your property.
Learned something kind of interesting. One afternoon there were lines and lines of folks waiting close to an hour to get gas & kerosene. Just a few hours later after dark, no lines. If your roads are clear enough that you can be out after dark, you might save yourself quite a bit of wait time. Of course, people were afraid that the kerosene (or gas) would be all gone by then. It wasn't though and since our situation wasn't dire, we were able to wait and avoid the lines.
The cookstove and extra tanks of camping fuel - Awesome to have on hand. We could have used our grill for cooking if we had to, but instead we were able to just set up our cookstove right on the countertop - easy-peasy. We had spaghetti one night, oatmeal & toast most mornings, mac & cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches, canned soup, etc... We were warm and we had food to eat. It made the frustration of not being able to flip on the TV easier for my gang. Ha!
Campfire lantern, oil lamps, fuel, flashlights & batteries. We love them. The lantern was awesome for lighting up a whole room and even put out a fair amount of heat. The oil lamps definitely help light up the area, but aren't quite bright enough to read by (at least not for me). Every person in our family was assigned a flashlight and kept up with it for the whole week. Tony & Joe had mag lights, while Jake, Jon & I had small led flashlights. All held out the whole week. The smaller ones are easier to misplace, but those led lights sure were nice and bright. I liked being able to keep mine with me at all times. At night it was so dark, you literally couldn't see your hand in front of your face. Even when we would run to town I kept it in my purse so I could shine it as we went into the house. VERY handy!
The scanner - Awesome for being able to *hear* what was going on around us. We aren't able to pick up radio stations well from our home so it's really our only way of judging how things are progressing. We could definitely tell that this was a HUGE issue and not to expect the lights to come on any minute. Likewise we were totally impressed with our emergency response folks, police, dispatchers, fire departments, rescue squads, weather spotters, volunteers, electric linemen, phone guys, etc... Hearing how they were cutting their way through the streets to get to people even with lines down all around reminded you that there are heroes among us everyday.
The portable radio/weather radio - ours didn't get a good signal, but it kept us occupied trying to hear things. Ha!
The portable CD player - By day 3, we were able to get back and forth to town so we went to the library and checked out some audiobooks on CD and regular books. The only problem was that the CD player took 6 C batteries and Wal-Mart was totally sold out. We looked at grocery stores, dollar stores, etc... Finally found some at Walgreens. Apparently not everyone else had thought to look there yet.
Animal feed & hay - Fortunately we had just stocked up before the storm hit. The animals were mighty grateful for that too. Nobody had to go without and Jake was able to chip through the ice and give them some fresh water each day.
Boys - Really wouldn't want to go through something like this without them. They did a great job of keeping kerosene in the heater, the animals fed, and our food at the right temperature.
As our refrigerator started to lose its chill, we put the refrigerated food in a box with ice and moved it to a bedroom that we weren't heating, opened the windows and made that room into our walk-in refrigerator. We boxed up the stuff from our freezer and took it to a friend in town who had extra room in his big ol' chest freezer. That was such a relief not to lose all of that meat!

The storm really wasn't that hard on us. Not being able to use the phone was probably the worst since we don't get cell signal at home and couldn't get in touch with family or each other when some were in town and some were at home. We did still have water. Not hot water of course, but it was easy enough to warm some water on the stove to wash your face with etc... Plus, we were able to drive into town and go to a friend's hosue to do some laundry, take showers, use the phone, etc... (Although Tony did even buy a filter in case we had to get water from the creek.)

Overall it was a kind of fun family adventure. The dogs enjoyed spending so much time in the house and we appreciated their extra body heat. We laughed a lot at flipping the switches as you would go in or leave a room just out of habit - even though they hadn't been working for days. We cuddled up together, played cards, talked a lot, and read some books.

Again, I just want to express my appreciation to the folks with the electric company, road crews, phone company, and volunteers who worked tirelessly in the rough weather to help get the power back on. They definitely rose to the challenge and did an awesome job!

Please remember to pray for the folks who are still without power. Folks not too far from us might be without power for (get this) up to a month! I can only imagine how difficult things are for them. I am MIGHTY thankful that our *little adventure* was less than a week!

Comments

• Feb. 2, 2009 - Untitled Comment

Posted by Juliestew

Ice? Snow? What's that? My kids are dying to see something besides rain. Hey, I ran a contest all weekend that no one entered.....ya interested???
julie