HUGE ICE STORM --2/21/15 (Part 5 of our Weather Week to Remember)

On the night of 2/20,  BEFORE the ice came,  we had some beautiful SNOW.

Well my Friends.... Here it comes!!!  So far I've shown you four other blog posts talking about the unbelievable 11 days of Winter Storms.   The first storm was an Ice Storm on 2/16;  second was a Snow Storm on 2/18;  third was a HORRIBLE ICE STORM on 2/21;  4th was a Snow Storm on  2/24  (which luckily missed us except for a dusting);  and 5th was another Snow Storm on  2/26 which did hit us. The only one of those storms to cause us damage was THIS one on 2/21 (the 3rd one)..

The temperatures stayed BELOW freezing during that entire 11 days.  Because of that,  anything we got with each storm stayed with us for the entire time... Finally,  on 2/27 and 2/28,  the temperatures got above freezing as the thaw began...  After that --it's CLEAN-UP time (which will take us a LONG time).

I've talked about this terrible Ice Storm on 2/21 so much,  but unless you are on Facebook (or unless I emailed you),  you haven't seen the photos yet... I chose 20 pictures to share from this storm --and will divide them into two blog posts.  Please click on the pictures for enlargements--if you 'really' want to see all of the damage.

This was what we found when daylight came on 2/21... One to two inches of heavy ice was coating EVERYTHING.  Tons of limbs/branches down and sticks EVERYWHERE!

After the snow,  the ice came---all night long.  This was the scariest part of the entire storm for us.  The noise of that ice/50 mph winds/limbs/trees blowing on our house was extremely scary.  We had no idea what we would find at daylight...We thought at that time that we had damage to our house.. The noise was unbelievable --and kept us awake most of the night... AND--the power went out during the night.  The above picture is what we found the next morning.

This was our first view from our front porch... You can't tell but that was about 2 inches of solid ice on our driveway. 

At daylight,  George wanted to go outside to check the top of our house... BUT--there was slick ice everywhere... He finally made it out by carefully going on the deck and down the steps.  What he found was GOOD news for us.. There was NO damage to our home that we knew of at the time....

We are so thankful that we paid big bucks several months ago to get all of the trees/limbs near our home trimmed/cut.  We are thankful to God that we made that decision, because I'm sure we would have had house damage if we hadn't have done that.

Limbs of all sizes --all over our yard

The ice (along with the high wind) was just too much for so many limbs... BUT--in our yard,  we did not lose any 'total' trees.  Thanks be to God.

An up close and personal view of some of our ICE on the trees

This picture shows some of our front yard and the large Rose Bed

Most of you know how much George and I love our yard --and how much time we spend keeping it looking pretty... WELL---as the old southern gal would say:  "It 'ain't' pretty now!!!!!"....  BUT--even through all of this,  we kept the faith and knew that we still have so many many blessings.  Thanks be to God.

The flag pole kept standing --but OH--the poor flag!

Those winds just tore the flag to shreds.... I've never seen anything like this before.

Just another picture showing the damage

Besides making it through the scary night (with all of the noise)---another scary thing for us was opening the door on the deck and just LISTENING to all of the CRACKING and POPPING of limbs in the tops of the trees.  Unbelievable!

A delicious dinner by candlelight (2/21)

Since we had no power,   our dinner the first night was all cold cuts... And since George and I always try to make the best of every situation,  we sat by our wonderful gas-log fireplace (which kept us warm all weekend, thanks be to God) and had a  'candlelight dinner' UNLIKE any we have ever had... ha...  Our Dinner:  chicken and ham over cottage cheese with some green onions and shredded cheese on the top.  We enhanced that dinner with some sliced tomatoes and baby carrots...   YUM...   And while eating,  we counted our blessings that we were safe and together,  and other than yard damage,  things were going to be okay.

GROWING Icicles along our garage

Finally,  I'll close this post showing you how the icicles around our house just grew and grew ---as we went through storm after storm after storm.... George captured this beauty --and I just had to show it to you.  We both love icicles.

Well there are several things we know now that we didn't know during the storm.  Yes,  we were without power for 50 hours ---BUT there are many people in our area who were without power for over a week.  AND---once we could get out and drive around the area,  we were shocked at how much more damage most people had than us..  This area has experienced one of the worst storms it has had in many, many years.  Even the Governor visited the area.  Someone said that it was like a Cat. 2 Tornado--but much more wide-spread.  YES---WE were lucky right here at our home!

Stay tuned for PART II of this storm.

Hugs,

Emoticons

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