Dodging an icy bullet

We got real lucky during the last 24 hours. Southern and central Arkansas was struck by an ice storm that put down enough ice to make driving treacherous, and cause scattered car accidents and even an occasional power outage. Our house was without power for about an hour and a half--I heard that a car had struck a power pole, possibly due to road conditions. As you can see from these pictures of our gas grill, satellite dish, and shrubbery, ice accumulated enough to start coating these objects.

Fortunately, there was not enough freezing rain long enough to cause us the problems that Arkansas experienced in December of 2000. In that year, the state was struck by 2 large-scale, very damaging ice storms that felled many branches and small trees, downed power lines, and caused some residents weeks of struggle without power and other services. Hundreds of millions of board feet of timber were damaged or destroyed, including whole pine plantations wiped out. Ranchers also struggled, as the loss of power to some of their facilities meant that their stock (especially chickens) died due to the unusually cold weather that accompanied these events. We hastily installed several studies following these events, and next week I'll get back to working on a paper chronicling five years of stand and tree recovery following these events.

We have contingencies in place to deal with these storms--as the Southern Research Station director's representative for the Monticello and Crossett locations, I closed our offices yesterday to ensure our employees didn't face the treacherous driving conditions (this had little impact, as only a couple of us work Fridays). Kenny's school was closed at about 9:30 a.m. yesterday, and they bussed him back home. Although we didn't have power (and thus our furnace didn't function), our house is well enough insulated that a couple hours in the cool weather doesn't make the house too cold. Hope had built a fire in our fire place, and we kept this going nicely all day long. I had spent a lot of the previous weekend putting up some firewood, and we were very glad of it!! We also have a kerosene space heater, in case we need it.

Today has been a lazy day so far--too wet and cool to do much outside, so Stephen and I caught up on some shut-eye, and Hope and the other kids puttered around the house. Tonight, we're getting a baby sitter for Kenny and Beth, and Hope and I will take Stephen to our church's "International Dinner". This is basically a pot-luck in which people bring traditional foods from their homelands (or dishes with international flair) to sample. Our church is fairly diverse from an international standpoint, so we usually have a large Hispanic and Filipino contingent with many outstanding food offerings. We also have a lot of people from southern Louisiana, so Cajun foods are also popular. European and other American-style dishes are also offered. I've made a batch of my famous "Yooper" pickled eggs, and Hope is preparing several dishes today (with a French flair).

We always look forward to this dinner, as the food is always spectacular, and the company good. The reason, by the way, that we are not taking Kenny and Beth is that this dinner was intended as an adult's night out, as opposed to most of our church social functions, which involve the whole family. Besides, Kenny and Beth LOVE our baby sitter (the neighbor girl), and would rather spend an evening with her that sitting around a table having to behave. Stephen is still a little too little to be left with a sitter, but he'll be fine at the international dinner.