Storm Pictures

Oklahoma Ice Storm

Tuesday, December 11 2007

This week a huge ice storm hit almost the entire state of Oklahoma. More than 400,000 people are without power due to the storm, and the entire state is under a state of national emergency. Most people out of power live in the Tulsa and Oklahoma City areas, but people living out in the sticks are having a lot of trouble as well. This storm has been truly amazing! I have never seen anything like it. For us in Tulsa, the ice did not freeze on the ground at all. All of the streets are quite safe to drive, at least as far as being slick. But tons of ice has accumulated on all of the trees and power lines. Thus there have been trees breaking all over town at an amazing rate. Standing in the driveway of my parent's house yesterday sounded like the Fourth of July. About every 20-30 seconds a huge tree or limb would crack, break, and then crash into either someone's house or the ground. The night before, during the worst of the storm, trees were breaking left and right and about every 30 seconds a bright blue flash of light could be seen in the sky due to either a transformer blowing up somewhere or ice shorting on power lines.

Yesterday for lunch we had to eat out, since all of our kitchen appliances are electric. We went to Panera bread and were lucky to find a place to sit down since the place was really hopping. The guy next to us had called all the other Panera's in town and found out that the Panera we went to was the only one that had power in the entire Tulsa area. The guy next to him had drove around for 2 hours trying to find wifi so he could get some work done for his business. And we all (everyone around our table) felt terrible for the guy who parked right outside the glass from our table. The top of his new car as bashed in and he had a huge hole through his windshield. In fact, when he pulled up, everyone within a 10 table radius looked at him with pity in their eyes.

Last night we drove around trying to find somewhere to eat. It was erie. A good 2/3's of the city was completely black and there were trees and power lines down all over the roads. Even more all of the street lights were completely black. This would normally not be much of a problem, but so many people simply didn't stop at them that it was always a little scary to go through a light. When we finally made our way back from dinner, (we called around for about an hour trying to find somewhere open) we had to wind all around our neighborhood trying to find a safe way back in. There were trees blocking 2 of the entrances into our neighborhood. There was a power line laying across the road right in front of our house, and there was carnage of trees making the other 2 entrances almost impassible. We had to squeeze through little a hole just large enough for our car.

While we still don't have power, (I had to find another place to write this blog) people are generally pretty happy and taking the storm pretty well. While I think my parent's neighborhood will look like a war zone for quite a while longer, hopefully they will get power on in the next could of days. Enjoy the pictures of the carnage at my parent's house.

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