Crazy Ice Storm + 3.5 Days Without Power

The weather last week was insane.  Sunday it was 70° and sunny.  Monday it SNOWED.

Ok, well, weather in NC can have a lot of variety.  If you don't like what the weather is doing right that moment, just give it a few hours.  

By Thursday the weather decided to give us SLEET... ALL NIGHT LONG.

So we woke up Friday morning and EVERYTHING was covered in ice.  Ok, well, obviously this called for turning the heat up and making a pot of tea.

Except...... around 9am Friday morning the power died.

We waited, expecting it to come back on after a little bit.  And we waited, and waited........  By mid-afternoon there was still no power.  This is a problem because it was supposed to be below freezing Friday night, and we had no heat, no hot showers, no way to stay warm.  We live in a trailer with what amounts to no insulation, so the heat from the day instantly dissipates.

Also, since we get our water from a well (which uses an electric pump to get the water out of the well and into our pipes) when the power is out that means we don't have any water.  Eep!

Luckily this tree missed our trailer - by a very narrow margin!

We drove into town Friday afternoon to stock up on some bottled water and find something to eat.  Here's something I haven't thought much about before.... What can you eat at room temperature that doesn't require any cooking, rinsing off, or chopping up?  Pseudo-food items like pop tarts and pringles.  Things that I normally would NEVER buy or eat.

Hmm.... This might help explain the power being out.

As we drove into town, we saw trees down all over the place, and one tree was down right over some power lines.  We also saw power lines that had snapped from the weight of the ice.

Luckily, we were able to camp out at my mother-in-law's house.  She has a wood stove which kept us all toasty, and she also has a hand-pumped well that we could get water from without power.  Whew!

In the end, we were out of power for 3 and a half days.  I must say - it EASILY felt like a week.

But now that we have power again every time I can start the dishwasher or turn on a faucet it feels like MAGIC.  Which, in a very real sense, it is.  Ahh.........................