Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: digitalandanalog on January 27, 2009, 03:39:17 PM
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I live in Arkansas. The winters here are usually not too bad (as opposed to my memories of Colorado winters), but this one going in the history books for me.
My poor trees are snapping like they are tooth picks and the sounds of trees breaking for miles around me is kinda creepy if I am outside to hear them. Almost every thing is coated in at least a 1/2 inch of ice.
And it appears that we won't see any kind of temperatures to thaw us out until Friday.
Blech.
I'll take that regular (deep) Colorado snow over this crap any day of the week.
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Might be a good time to locate batteries, spare blankets ect. in case the electricity goes out.
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I'm in Cabot and I was expecting much worse, actually. You must be further north, because we got just a bare sprinkling. I've gotten used to getting 1 or 2 of these a year. I'd much prefer snow, but we make do!
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I live in Arkansas. The winters here are usually not too bad (as opposed to my memories of Colorado winters), but this one going in the history books for me.
My poor trees are snapping like they are tooth picks and the sounds of trees braking for miles around me is kinda creepy if I am outside to hear them. Almost every thing is coated in at least a 1/2 inch of ice.
And it appears that we won't see any kind of temperatures to thaw us out until Friday.
Blech.
I'll take that regular (deep) Colorado snow over this crap any day of the week.
Folks up north don;t appreciate the magnitude of the destruction and mayhem these lower midwest ice storms can cause.
(Lived in Ark for a while, now in DFW)
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I live in Arkansas. The winters here are usually not too bad (as opposed to my memories of Colorado winters), but this one going in the history books for me.
My poor trees are snapping like they are tooth picks and the sounds of trees braking for miles around me is kinda creepy if I am outside to hear them. Almost every thing is coated in at least a 1/2 inch of ice.
And it appears that we won't see any kind of temperatures to thaw us out until Friday.
Blech.
I'll take that regular (deep) Colorado snow over this crap any day of the week.
Yup. It makes the woods sound like a shotgun fight.
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My poor trees are snapping like they are tooth picks and the sounds of trees braking for miles around me is kinda creepy if I am outside to hear them.
Yeah I was backpacking during an icestorm in missouri a few years ago and had a ~60 lbs. limb fall about 6 feet from my tent while I was sleeping. Probably wouldn't have killed me, but I'm sure it would have made the 12 mile hike out a little interesting.
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Yeah I was backpacking during an icestorm in missouri a few years ago and had a ~60 lbs. limb fall about 6 feet from my tent while I was sleeping. Probably wouldn't have killed me, but I'm sure it would have made the 12 mile hike out a little interesting.
We get ice storms in Missouri? I moved here fairly recently (Jan 08), haven't experienced that yet.
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Yeah I was backpacking during an icestorm in missouri a few years ago and had a ~60 lbs. limb fall about 6 feet from my tent while I was sleeping. Probably wouldn't have killed me, but I'm sure it would have made the 12 mile hike out a little interesting.
It might have. One fell on a cruiser a cop had just gotten out of during the last ice storm, here. Went right through the windshield, dash, and driveshaft.
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Nick,
We had a pretty bad ice storm in the St. Louis area, just two years ago. Hundreds of thousands without power for days. Traffic lights out everywhere. Stores were selling out of ice-melt, and batteries, and generators, and space heaters, and such. Rather a trying time.
Usually, though, it just means the roads are bad and the trees are pretty. :)
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we usually get a dozy every couple of years. the one spitting ice at the moment isn't to bad round here.
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Huh, that's good to know.
Perhaps I'll pick up a generator this year if the opportunity presents it's self.
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Yeah. We had a bad storm (and week-long power outage) the summer before that, and lots o' folks bought generators. If I'd known then, that my house would be without power, in freezing temps, for a week, I would have bought one back then, too. But "No," I said, "I'm not gonna buy a generator just for these few days. It's not like I'll ever need it again." Yup, I'm a genius. ;/
But now you're thinking, "Does Missouri have massive power failures every time there's a storm?" Thankfully, no. It seems to have been a combination of poor infrastructure maintenance, failure to trim trees, and unusually harsh weather. My house (and I suspect this entire area) is much less prone to power outages, since those two bad spells. Just about every weakness has been exploited and repaired, and Mother Nature has trimmed our trees for us.
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Folks up north don;t appreciate the magnitude of the destruction and mayhem these lower midwest ice storms can cause.
(Lived in Ark for a while, now in DFW)
Winter of 06-07 Iowa got two back to back ice storms, about 1/4 of the state was without electricity for 3-4 days while a couple 100K people for over 2 weeks.
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"the sounds of trees braking"
Is it a typical screeching sound as they lock the brakes up and the tires slide, or do your trees have jake brakes? :D
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"the sounds of trees braking"
Is it a typical screeching sound as they lock the brakes up and the tires slide, or do your trees have jake brakes? :D
Anti Lock brakes so that go pop, quiet, pop, quiet, pop, quiet, pop and so forth until the tree branches come the ground.
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"Folks up north don;t appreciate the magnitude of the destruction and mayhem these lower midwest ice storms can cause."
Uh, dream on.
About 8 years ago we had a huge ice storm in Northern Virginia. My friends were without power for a week, and they live 5 miles outside of Washington, DC. Thank God they had a fireplace.
They had a 60 foot, 110 year old pecan tree in the back yard split in two from crown to ground. Most of the rest of their Maples and Poplars also took pretty severe damage.
In 1993 there was an ice storm over much of Virginia that took down hundreds of thousands of trees.
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in montgomery county md folks go ape when the tree trimmers try to maintain power right of way. so after isabel those were the same folks who sued because they were without power.
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Since when were the good people of Virginia referred to as "folks up north?" :|
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It's not that we don't appreciate how much bad ice storms suck, we just tend to regard them as garden variety mayhem and destruction more than apocalyptic events.
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Dec. '07 we had a nasty one in NE Oklahoma, I was without power 6 days. It took me 45 minutes with a chainsaw to clear a path out of my driveway to the road the 1st morning. almost every tree on my 3 acres had at least some damage except the 2 POS Bradford pears my wife insisted on a few years ago.
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It's not that we don't appreciate how much bad ice storms suck, we just tend to regard them as garden variety mayhem and destruction more than apocalyptic events.
Exactly. When it happens all the time you get used to the destruction and such. So, no we don't appreciate the destruction they bring when they visit the South.
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Update...
The word "braking" now has its letter "e" installed. Bad typing, not bad spelling.
I lost power for about 6 hours. I suspect that it was taken care of rapidly due to the fact that the hospital a block down is on the same grid as well. My father, 2 miles away, has had no power after 9 a.m. and is unlikely to have it anytime in the exceptionally near future.
The ice that was 1/2 thick is now close to an inch thick and the rain won't let up.
My poor pine tree is now a tall pine stick :mad: and my maple is starting to break. I love these large trees for the wonderful shade they produce in the summer. They easily help my house at least 5 degrees cooler. Or, they did until today.
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Arkansas is south of Virginia, or at least my portion of Virginia, so I'm "up north."
I also grew up in Central Pennsylvania, which is a lot more "up north."
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We went to freezing rain up here. I'm not looking forward to the drive in the morn.
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Exactly. When it happens all the time you get used to the destruction and such. So, no we don't appreciate the destruction they bring when they visit the South.
If it would make you feel better, I'm sure we could arrange for some guys to beat the hell out of your property every two years or so.
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We get ice storms in Missouri? I moved here fairly recently (Jan 08), haven't experienced that yet.
Not only do you get ice storms, but you get ice storms that can knock out the power for a week or two at a time. I imagine you're resourceful enough to cope with that, but it still ain't fun.
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If it would make you feel better, I'm sure we could arrange for some guys to beat the hell out of your property every two years or so.
Sounds like a deal. Just let me go beef up on the insurance first...
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We went to freezing rain up here. I'm not looking forward to the drive in the morn.
Once I got out of the development, the drive was surprisingly easy. The roads were wet but there weren't many cars out this morning. Hopefully, this afternoon will be similar.
To be honest, I think this might be the first real ice storm I've had to deal with. In Jersey we didn't seem to get more than rain. Most of the time, anyway.
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almost every tree on my 3 acres had at least some damage except the 2 POS Bradford pears my wife insisted on a few years ago.
That's odd. Around here the Bradford pears are the first to go.
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That's odd. Around here the Bradford pears are the first to go.
That was what I expected, hoping to have an excuse to replace them :(.
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I recall a real nasty ice storm I think it was 2000 or 2001 heck could have been 02 for all I remember, anyways I was living in
Overland Park, KS (suburb of KC Metro area) That evening was one of the eeriest I can remember, standing outside around 9pm it was so quiet except for the constant sound of crackling tree limbs, it was almost like popcorn popping.. but consistently for hours on end. Every once in awhile a loud "cannon boom" would go off as a transformer popped. The sky had a blueish green glow to it do to all the transformers popping. You could even see distant yellowish glows from powerlines going down and or fires. My roomate and I were standing outside when a line fell just a few houses down, it crackled and popped as the end of the line flopped and flipped around like a snake with it's tail on fire. That was a pretty wild ice storm.
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If it would make you feel better, I'm sure we could arrange for some guys to beat the hell out of your property every two years or so.
It happens every winter, no need to hire anyone. And then during the summer millions of acres get burned. And occasionally the melting ice makes the rivers flood so there's the flood damage to deal with also. So no thanks, there's already enough damage up here. I'd rather have an ice storm every two years or so.
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It happens every winter, no need to hire anyone. And then during the summer millions of acres get burned. And occasionally the melting ice makes the rivers flood so there's the flood damage to deal with also. So no thanks, there's already enough damage up here. I'd rather have an ice storm every two years or so.
Well, you know, when it happens all the time, you get used to it and it's not a big deal, right? I mean you're used to wildfires and floods, so that makes 'em all ok, right?
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I recall a real nasty ice storm I think it was 2000 or 2001 heck could have been 02 for all I remember, anyways I was living in
Overland Park, KS (suburb of KC Metro area) That evening was one of the eeriest I can remember, standing outside around 9pm it was so quiet except for the constant sound of crackling tree limbs, it was almost like popcorn popping.. but consistently for hours on end. Every once in awhile a loud "cannon boom" would go off as a transformer popped. The sky had a blueish green glow to it do to all the transformers popping. You could even see distant yellowish glows from powerlines going down and or fires. My roomate and I were standing outside when a line fell just a few houses down, it crackled and popped as the end of the line flopped and flipped around like a snake with it's tail on fire. That was a pretty wild ice storm.
Where you there in '97?
Early October, 13 inches of snow on trees that still had leaves.
It was worse then any ice storm I can remember.
I was working in OP, KS during the ice storm your talking about.
Making coffee and cooking burgers out in the shop on a propane grill.
A little whiskey in the coffee at 7:30 in the morning. Fun times waiting to get back power and phones so we could get back to work.
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Well, you know, when it happens all the time, you get used to it and it's not a big deal, right? I mean you're used to wildfires and floods, so that makes 'em all ok, right?
Yeah, pretty much. Gets to where you don't even notice them. But you send someone up here to beat up the property, they might get shot. :laugh:
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Where you there in '97?
Early October, 13 inches of snow on trees that still had leaves.
It was worse then any ice storm I can remember.
I was working in OP, KS during the ice storm your talking about.
Making coffee and cooking burgers out in the shop on a propane grill.
A little whiskey in the coffee at 7:30 in the morning. Fun times waiting to get back power and phones so we could get back to work.
I moved to OP in 2000 however I remember similar conditions in Wichita (where I moved from) in 97
the 02 storm was quite the experience though.
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Where you there in '97?
Early October, 13 inches of snow on trees that still had leaves.
It was worse then any ice storm I can remember.
I was working in OP, KS during the ice storm your talking about.
Making coffee and cooking burgers out in the shop on a propane grill.
A little whiskey in the coffee at 7:30 in the morning. Fun times waiting to get back power and phones so we could get back to work.
I lived in KCK during the 97 storm. Talk about a bitch.
Missed the Dec '07 storm here in Tulsa last year due to being at Ft Bliss for deployment training. This one I got to be here for and really didn't have any problems. Tulsa missed the brunt of the storm as the real damage was done south and east of here.
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the best way to experience a good ice storm is in a tent. did that once and only once. listening to stuff fall as the tent sagged lower and lower. trying very hard not to touch tent. first time i ever cooked inside a sleeping tent