So, the weather is the central fact of life in Indiana today; probably tomorrow as well. Seems as if the closing of everything probably could’ve waited until noon or a bit later in Lafayette, but we have some nasty sounding icy stuff coming down right now. For my part, I’m good so long as the electricity is reliable. There’s no overstating how much of my life seems to hinge on those outlets supplying the juice. And, in the winter, the furnace is probably the most important part. Aside from that, I’m able to do work on my computer, have a good supply of wine and other spirits, and have a pretty tasty pot of chili in the works.
In the short term, the forced slow down is mostly nice. God forbid I or someone I love should have to make it to the hospital or the like in this kind of weather. Otherwise, hunkering down for a bit isn’t all bad. We’ll see if the weather folks are in the ball park with this one. They have had a recent track record of overstating the potential of weather events. This one looks to be worth paying attention to.
Keep warm out there. Share your stories of The White Death from Above.
I’m glad you started this string – I’ll look forward to seeing people’s stories. And I totally agree that WL Schools and Purdue should have had classes today.. easily could have gotten home after 2-230.
I’m in New Jersey / New York right now, and I’m trying to make sure that our network based in Indy stays running if the magic juice stops flowing.
Like you said, if that stops, just about everything else stops.
That said, your title reminds me of this postcard I was passing around to my East Coast friends when they were using that word earlier this year: http://bluntcard.com/compose.php?imageid=747
Oh, while I’m sharing links, here are two more useful ones I’ve been worrying over while hoping some locations don’t lose power.
IPL status map: http://apps.iplpower.com/outages/OutageMap.aspx
Duke map: http://www.duke-energy.com/indiana/outages/current.asp#outagemap
It was snowing? Why, I didn’t notice from the confines of my evil German Panzer, I mean SUV. The heated steering wheel may have had something to do with it.
Heated steering wheel!?! That’s the kind of decadence that’s making us soft and will be our ruin. Heated seats, on the other hand, are just one of life’s necessities.
(Oh, and thanks for the links, Jason.)
From email from someone in our Chicago office:
Oh, and a headed steering wheel sounds about as good as a heated pillow, Buzz.
Don’t knock it until you try it. Now that I have one, I think that it is as essential as heated seats.
Weather guy was saying there have been lightning strikes in Illinois.
Almost an inch of ice here already. Another inch on the way tonight. We got a prpane backup generator for the house when we finished the basement last year so the mood here is still pretty bright. Who knows when the he’ll we’ll go back to school though.
If it was just snow, no worries. Unfortunately, it’s a bunch of icy slop.
The governor and lt. gov must have learned from the recent lesson learned by their peers in New York. When they appeared on TV talking about storm preparedness, I snapped to attention, tested all our flashlights and then ran to the store for batteries, bread, milk and chocolate. My other strategy is to cook up all uncooked meat in the fridge and any other things that would go bad if uncooked. I try to cook things that we will be able to eat cold, if necessary. I don’t worry about edible food spoiling if the electricity goes out, I would just put it out on the porch. Can’t get my husband to move the gas grill to a more sheltered spot, though. We look at emergencies differently: I want to prepare for the worst, even if it doesn’t happen, and he feels preparing for the worst might encourage it to show up when it otherwise might not have.
Took about 2 hours to clear the driveway. The iciness of the snow made it tough to move. Ended up with a system where I used a mattock to break the ice and my wife used the shovel to move it away. Looked a bit like a concrete removal project.
Haven’t gone to work since Monday. Likely won’t go again until next Monday. Ice here in Indianapolis. Looks like it was slushy sometime last night. Should have shoveled then, didn’t. Now, it’s an inch (or so) of solid ice. Need solar ice removal. Maybe some sun tomorrow and Friday? Hope springs eternal.
Heated steering in your Panzer? That’s kinda ahistorical. lol.
Yeah, I’ve heard stories about the German experience in the Soviet winter. Didn’t sound comfortable.
I just cleared out the 2 feet or so of snow plowed onto the end of my driveway. It was heavy.
The more I hear, the more I’m dreading trying to get into my car tomorrow at IND when I fly back. It has been there since Monday morning.
New York has been an ice rink on the sidewalks. I have a 2 mile walk to the office and was feeling victorious for only falling once.
We dodged the bullet here in Louisville this go ’round, just had pouring rain here yesterday with the temps near 50, it got a lot colder here today, with temps in the 20’s with snow flurries. I talked to my sister last night who lives near Pendleton and Fortville, she told me their lights flickered a few times but they didn’t lose power. They actually live out in the country about a mile off I-69 exit 14 (the Lapel exit), my brother-in-law decided to wait until the wind stopped blowing before getting out with his snow blower. What you all are going through brought back memories of the ice storm two years ago here in Kentucky. I lost power at my house for five days the last week in January, 2009. We were lucky (at least in the first few hours) we didn’t immediately lose power at the office, our office is about 1/2 block down the street from St. Matthews City Hall (St. Matthews is a suburb of Louisville). Anyway there was a tree limb that had fallen due to the ice and was resting on a transformer, Louisville Gas & Electric was attempting to move the limb, the cable snapped and our office wound up losing power for 2 1/2 days. The crazy part of that was that we had 1099’s and W-2’s that were due and wound up working the weekend to get them done. It was surreal coming after having lost power also in Louisville 4 1/2 months earlier when the remnants of Hurricane Ike came through in September, 2008. At least in September the temps were in the mid-70’s instead of the mid-30’s like they were in January, 2009. I lost power at my house during the September, 2008 windstorm for 7 days. Thankfully we haven’t had episodes like that for a while, it makes you appreciate how much we rely on the juice. Hang in there fellow Hoosiers, it’ll pass. On a personal note though, I’d rather have two feet of snow rather than an inch of ice. Those trees and power lines take kinder to snow that they do to ice.
I’ve learned from the German experience. I keep my Panzer gassed up. ;)
We got slammed with about 3 hours of lake effect after the main storm left town. It was snowing about as hard as I’ve ever seen. We got about 8 additional inches over that time. It was the really fluffy stuff.
We very seldomly get lake effect. I don’t know how people out east stand it.