December 2007 Oklahoma Ice Storm

On Sunday morning at 8:30 the lights went off. The weather wasn’t bad, just grey and dreary so no one expected to be out of power very long. Around noon the freezing rain started. By late afternoon we were bringing more firewood down to the back door in anticipation of having to sleep in front of the fireplace. Little did we know what was to come our way.

The falling limbs

The scene on Monday morning after daybreak was awesome! The freezing rain was still falling and had created a winter wonderland outside. Huge limbs on the trees were bowing under the weight of the ice. Around mid-morning the limbs began to break. There would be a loud “crack” and then a crash as the limbs hit the frozen ground. In obtaining more firewood from the supply stack, we were forced to navigate the terrain like running through a mine field. Avoiding as many large limbs and trees as possible, while listening to see how close the falling limbs were. It was really dangerous. The limbs fell all of Monday.

Hot meals and a hot shower

By Tuesday the roads were passable. The ground was warm enough to melt the ice so we were able to travel the 7 miles to town. There we could get some groceries (that needed no refrigeration) and go to a local cafe to get a hot meal. The businesses that had electricity were packed with people. Our neighbor across the road had propane and thus hot water and a generator for lights. They invited us to come over for a hot shower. That was probably the best shower I can remember! We laughed more than once about how we had stopped camping out years ago because we did not like the hard work. Here we were “camping out” in our own living room. Many of the younger people had a much harder time with the inconvenience than we did. We may not have liked what we were doing but at least we knew how!

Sharing the firewood

Tuesday evening our son and grandson came from a neighboring city to get more firewood. We loaded a “rick of wood” into the back of his Denali. That was fun! We were grateful we had plenty to share.

The generator

On Wednesday late afternoon a friend brought his generator over for us to use. His power had come back on-line. We could hook the refrigerator to it (although the perishables were already ruined), the television and could make real coffee. Life was good again! In watching the local news we were amazed at the devastation. Northern Oklahoma looked mostly like a war zone, with about 500,000 people out of power. We live on a Rural Electric Co-operative and through cooperation with other co-op’s in neighboring states, the electric returned to our home by Thursday afternoon. We were only out for 5 days. Our son and his family were out 12 days in the city.

We were very grateful that we did not run out of water during this time. The water towers supplying the lines are filled by electric pumps and the Rural Water District kept the pumps running with generators. Keep in mind that the generator must be filled with gasoline every 7 to 8 hours, so everyone was up day and night, either tending fires or filling generators. We all were tired.

The aftermath – 5 acres of “pick up sticks”

There is a lot of clean-up that will take time to accomplish. Almost all of the trees will survive and in 2 or 3 years you will not be able to tell they were ever damaged. We will be playing “pick-up-sticks” well into spring, but none of the buildings or our home was damaged. For that, we are grateful.

In the 35 years we have lived here, this was the longest we have had to go without power. Electricity is a modern convenience we have definitely gotten used to having available!