Thursday 25 February 2016

Ice Storm '16 Part 1

What a horrible storm it is. And it is not over. Our poor White Pines, in fact, most of our conifers, are in bad shape. Droopy. It's not as much damage as our last ice storm.

Wednesday, we watched the storm very carefully, and at the last minute I used the snowblower on the 5cm (2") or so of snow. We knew there was ice rain acomin'. Then we waited. I cleverly (not) put the rain gauge out around 3:30, although when I went out at 1:30 to do the snow, that's when the rain pellets began. We had about 25mm or 1" of rainfall. The trees were droopy on Wednesday, and I knew it would get worse. I soaked two winter coats!


There are thousands without power across southeast Ontario. Ours went out at 8 p.m. yesterday, Wednesday, I hunkered down in bed reading, with a flashlight. It cam back on, then off, then on, then off! I banked the fire for overnight heat, and went back to bed to read.

The trees look terrible. It breaks my heart to look at them. My back is really sore today, I guess I slept badly, and I have a bit of work to do in the yard clearing up the tree branches. They do smell lovely, mind you, pine sap aroma as a comfort, although one knows that it is the blood of the trees that is dripping. Quebec, in the third photo, has an estimated 250,000 people without power.



I slid along the sidewalk, filled up the bird feeders, and slid down the driveway to get the paper. The mailbox, which was hanging on by two/four screws, has now come off. So much for mail for the next few days! We bought a new one, but I wanted to wait until our storms were over to install it. The snowplough just whacks them sideways to hell.

 

It is still 0 C. (32 F.) and it is expected to get colder and snow some more.

I dread it! In the meantime, it is still raining... Buster is not amused. He looked out the door, tried to avoid the ice pellets on the deck, shook his paw, looked out into the yard, then looked back at me!


And in Ottawa!
Video of flooded Colonel By at Bank St

0:14
Play

Looking back:Dec. 2012 What a day it was!
Dec. 2013What an ice storm: December 21 - 22!  hit Toronto very hard.

11 comments:

eileeninmd said...

Good morning, the ice storms are horrible. It is sad to see the ice destroying the trees. I hope you warm up soon.

William Kendall said...

I know that spot of Colonel By- always prone to have water pools on it in this kind of weather. I pass over the bridge often enough, and sure enough, I would not want to be walking down there with cars around!

We seem to have gotten the freezing rain start a bit later, but it made things slippery- I fell on the sidewalk this morning, and my left arm seems to have taken the worst of it.

Get your rest, and poor Buster!

Karen said...

We got a LOT of snow up the Valley, but missed most of the freezing rain. I could hear it hitting my bedroom window last night. Thankfully we didn't lose any power. (We took an awful hit in the BIG STORM of 98. Hard to believe that was 18 years ago!!) The snowplow didn't get by here until morning and we have one heck of a bank at the road. The man of the house is working in his home office today so he will get the tractor and bucket out after lunch.
Meanwhile, my grandson and daughters partner are looking for snowshoes so they can go rabbit hunting, HAHAHAA, good luck! Daughter and I will drink tea and eat bonbons and laugh at them. (Partner drove a snowplow all night, I just hope he isn't too sleep deprived or we might have to pull him out of the snowbank where he falls down to nap)

Anonymous said...

Keep safe! Looks lovely but very dangerous.

Nancy J said...

This looks like a lot of such hard work for you. Maybe one branch a day!!! Huge power outages, we find it so hard to imagine the spread of such a storm. Heaps of snow, poor cats, just a bit too much for them today.

Yamini MacLean said...

Hari OM
It ain't done with us yet... Stay hunkered! YAM xx

Red said...

That made an awful mess. I hope you didn't have any more damage than the trees. There's one poor lady who looks like she's stuck in the snow!!!

William Kendall said...

I don't know if you're aware yet, but Tina (East Gwillimbury Camera Girl) and her husband died in a car accident earlier this week. Her last post and her Facebook page are getting a lot of attention at the moment.

Yogi♪♪♪ said...

I hate ice. We had an ice storm several years ago that did a huge amount of damage.

Kay said...

I'm so sorry you're having such a difficult winter. I sure hope spring will arrive earlier than usual before there's more damage.

The Furry Gnome said...

Sorry you got all that ice; we just got snow.