Hi Toni,..great pictures and very festive looking as well i see you are well prepared,..wise to be prepared for the worst.
All day on the news here in Texas, there's been lots of reports of snapped power lines and major power outages around the Dallas area (and other parts of the state and neighboring states "up north"). Just hoping everyone stays warm and will have power back soon. Now... let's just hope Toni gets some snow so she can make a snow angel.
When I was young, my Dad's employer hired a fellow from Massachusetts to help run the company. He was a nice guy, but a bit of a know it all. When the first ice storm threatened, the locals said they wouldn't be in the next day if it iced over. He laughed at them and bragged about driving in ice and snow "back home." The next day, the first person to arrive at the office answered the phone and found out that the new boss had put his car in the ditch a couple of blocks from home. He ordered the man to bring the company truck and pull him out. When the truck arrived, he ordered the driver out of the truck so he could pull his car out. After all, he didn't want someone that didn't know how to drive on ice to damage his car. He proceded to put the company truck in the ditch along with his car. He called into the office again and my Dad answered. The company also had an army truck (called a deuce and a half) on loan for a contract they were working on. My Dad fired it up and drove to get the two other vehicles out of the ditch. When he arrived, once again the boss ordered him out of the truck. It didn't work. My Dad told him to be quiet. After all, he'd already put two in the ditch. The new boss didn't argue. My Dad the pulled both out and followed them to the office. Over the years I've known many transplants that don't understand the weather here. They learned to drive on a surface that freezes, then gets covered in a frozen layer. Down here, we have warm roads that melt whatever falls, then freezes over during the night. The resulting surface closely resembles buttered glass. The locals know to stock up on necessities when bad weather is forecast, and to stay at home until it clears. A few have to brave the elements due to job requirements, but the rest sit back and wait for things to thaw.
We feel the same about incomers here Roy. They think they know everything about driving in Scotland in bad weather. Little do they know that the road conditions here are far different from the ones down south. Black ice is the one that gets most of them as it can't be seen on the road surface. They put their foot down and then wonder why they find themselves spinning out of control. Thankfully not all English drivers are so foolish - some even listen to us Scots and stay at home.
As cold and inconvenient as the ice it, it is so much better than looking out the door to nothing but sunny skies, no rain and temps between 100-115 for months on end. Most of the people without power and with dead car batteries would disagree with me right now though. Randy had to chop off those limbs hanging on the car yesterday. They had frozen to the roof of the car and were just getting heavier and heavier...and there is more sleet in the forecast later today and tomorrow when another storm system moves in. The above 32 deg temps for tomorrow and Monday are only supposed to last maybe 2 hours in mid-afternoon then the temp will drop back into the 20 degree range those nights. Looks like Tuesday might be warmer.
When we first moved here (in February) and I was driving about, I wondered how the highway yellow raised markers stayed in place--the snow plows would just scrape them off. Sometime in late March I realized Texas doesn't have snow plows! At work, a colleague of my husband's wanted him to call the local Road and Bridge crew to get some salt on the hill going to the factory. The colleague was from Iowa. Texas doesn't have piles of road salt.
I'm just glad most people have cell phones now. I was getting really sick of people wanting me to call a tow truck to get them out of the ditch in front of my house in bad weather. My house is on a corner and they would not slow down for the turn. I even had a women ask me to watch her baby while she took care of the car in the ditch.
We do have piles of sand to use on bridges, overpasses and major roadways though. But they can't put it down until after the streets are frozen over so it will sit on top of the ice, otherwise it would be frozen into the ice and be useless. I think, if memory serves correctly, many years ago someone decided to put plows on the front of the sand trucks and scrape up the 1/4 to 1/2 inch of ice that had fallen....several months and thousands of dollars later when the asphalt on those streets had been dug up and replaced from the damage, the plows were either sold or put in storage. Normally ice falls during the night, by morning the roads are bad enough to delay school and business openings a couple of hours then by 3-4 pm you would never know anything had happened, the sun would be out and the streets are clear. Maybe once or twice every 10 years or so we get ice/snow that stays around more than a day or two.
A combination of people stocking up for the next few days, and the problems the trucks are having resupplying the stores led to this. It's the bread aisle at the local grocery store. Normally, there are no gaps. The bread aisle during the ice storm. ( photo / image / picture from Evil Roy's Garden )
Wow,..almost a clear out,..it happened here in 2010 with the big snow,..nobody could get bottled water when the pipes in town froze for 14 days,..food supplies ran down as well.
I've always wondered why bread is one of the things people run out and stock up on during storms? Unless they also get lots of peanut butter and jelly.
Customer who owns a grocery store 4 items that sell fast, Milk, bread ,beer and TP. All the weatherman has to say snow.
Your ice storm arrives for tonight and tomorrow according to the Parcel Delivery Service, the National Weather Bureau. Wrapped up in the appropriate temperature it will make sliding from Sunday to Monday much easier. My bucket of sand stands ready. Please don't send any more this year. Jerry P.S. My freezer has plenty of bread, I will not need to forage in an empty aisle.
Last Sunday, I awoke to a layer of black ice over everything. I walk with a friend Sunday AM's, so I very carefully headed out to meet her. She keeps her car in her garage (lucky girl!) and because the ice was black ice, she had no idea of the conditions! So, as she is drives to meet me, she becomes concerned that something is wrong with her steering as it was not responding as it should (!). Then she becomes worried that something is also wrong with her brakes (!). She told me she drove a good 1-2 miles before she figured out she was blithely driving on sheer ice!
