The Ice Storm!

Hello! What an absolute crazy week we have all had here in the Tulsa Metro area! I have never seen anything like this in my entire life....just sheer devastation in many areas of town!

Before I begin, though, I have to say how extremely grateful I am for the Lord's protection over our family and friends during the storm and the days to follow. All of our family (including my parents and brothers) were ok, and there was no damage to our homes or vehicles.

The storm began last Sunday evening, when it began to just pour with freezing rain (there was even thunder and lightning, which I thought was weird for December!). It poured all night long, which left layers of ice everywhere (thankfully, not on the streets!). When we woke up Monday morning, we found out school was canceled, and people had lost power and trees. We lost our power shortly after breakfast Monday morning, and we lost our one little tree that was in our front yard. Now, my parents are a different story. They, too, lost their power, but all throughout the day Monday they lost many of their trees around their house! Apparently, the ice was so heavy on the tree limbs, that trees were just cracking and falling everywhere. Like I said, I have never seen anything like it!

In order to stay warm, we took the boys and stayed at my parent's house. They didn't have power, but they did have a warm fire always going in the fireplace. Despite the circumstances, we had all had fun spending time together! After spending two nights in the cold, my in-laws, who live out of state, met us halfway, and they took the boys for us. By that time, the electric companies were calling this the worst power outage in Oklahoma history, and they were saying it may take up to a week before they get every one's power back on. Thankfully, on Wednesday evening, my parents' power came back on, so we stayed with them for another night. Then, Thursday ours came back on! Praise the Lord!!!!!

Thursday afternoon, Michael and I helped my dad and brothers clean up their yard. Michael chainsawed all of the fallen trees, and the rest of us piled them up along the curbs around their house. Their yard looks so much better now, and, thankfully, the city will be coming around after the new year to gather all of the piles of tree limbs!

Life is certainly beginning to get back to normal around here now. I am sure there are lots of poeple who still have tree damage to clean up, but it is great to see most of the power back on around town. The stores are beginning to open up again, and people are out and about. Most of the area schools were closed all of last week, but, as far as I know, they will be open again tomorrow. One of the cool things to see this past week was all of the different electric companies that came from other states to help out. We saw trucks from Illinois, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Louisiana, etc... Everyone worked together to clean up the mess and get all of the power back on. Now, that's what I call TEAMWORK!

In the next blog, I will include pictures of the tree damage at my parent's house.