Ice Storm

An ice storm hit us here in central MA a little over a week ago. Thursday night E went to visit his parents in southern MA and stayed there over night. The ice had started accumulating on the trees here around 4pm, and before long, they would have had enough.

At midnight, I'd just turned off the light with Noki snuggled up next to me when we heard a big, loud, BOOM, like a rifle shot. Noki looked up and growled, and I told him it was fine and to go to sleep. At 2, I realized the power had gone out, probably at the boom, and that it was possible no one had called the power company. So I called, then crawled back into bed, and heard the loud CRACK-BOOM!! The first tree near the house had toppled. I went and looked out the window, and didn't see anything. So back to bed. And for the next 6 hours, trees were coming down every 15 minutes or so.

At 4:30, I heard another loud CRACK and thought my now ritual mantra - 'Please don't hit the house!' And when the boom came, the whole house shook. I jumped up again to look out the window, and this time one of the close trees had just missed the house. So back to bed.

A long night of not sleeping while listening to trees come down around you leads to some interesting thoughts. Besides, 'Please don't hit the house!' there's the 'I wonder if I should move to a room further from the trees?' And the 'If I move, that's where the tree will end up hitting.' And the morbid 'I wonder if I will be able to reach my cell to call for help if a tree comes in and impales me?'

At 5:30, the mantra finally stopped working, and the first tree hit the house, on the south wall of our bedroom. Again, up to the window, and nothing seemed to be damaged. No sounds of rushing air, no water pouring in the roof, OK, it's OK, I shouldn't call and wake up E at his parents. Back to bed.

At 6:30, the mantra failed again, and a second tree hit the house, this time on the east wall of our bedroom. The whole house shook and I thought for sure I was about to have a tree in bed with me. But no, it luckily bounced the other direction, pulling the wires off the house as it went. This time, I decided it was OK to wake up E and called him. Poor guy, got woken up by a somewhat frantic wife telling him trees were hitting the house.

Aside from the wires, no damage was done, thank goodness. And while the next few hours were stressful, it all worked out OK. E went to the store down by his parents (where they didn't get the ice storm, by the way) and got us a generator. I went out and sawed up the 7 trees across the driveway with my trusty bow saw. And we had the generator for power for the next 8 days, until the power came back.

The only sad part of this story is that, unfortunately, 2 of my fishies didn't make it. Tropical fish aren't used to 20 degree daily temperature changes. Poor little guys. Sniff, sniff.

And now that I've got power back, I suppose there's no excuse for not blogging...