Ice storm throught middle America

I lost contact with BTM sometme early this morning. She has been in the midst of an ice storm for the past couple of days. Power is going out all over Oklahoma City and surrounding states. 270,000 people have lost power so far...www.oge.com.... this is a link for the power outages.

Fortunately, we haven't lost power here (my phone just died, that's all...lol) but plenty of people have! I just took some pictures of the ice....

Here's what left of my flowers....



Here's some grass, it's like stalagmites, the ice is growing upwards...



This is what is hanging from my roof...



And one more...giant killer icicles!

Hi Sweetie; Glad you are okay. I remember the severe ice storm we had here in 1998 at the beginning of January and many were without power for a few weeks. My Mother was without power for 2 weeks and stayed with me. We lost it for 72 hours. Thankfully I have always been prepared in case of such emergencies. It was a wake up call for many that weren't prepared. We will be seeing more disasters like this coming... please everyone be prepared.

here is a link of what we experienced:

http://archives.cbc.ca/IDD-1-70-258/disasters_tragedies/ice_storm/

The weather here is:

Crap

It's raining. I'm pretty sure that I'm further up north than you, yet you have ice? That's odd...

Here are some more pictures I took today while I was out and about, and this isn't even the worst of it. It's hard to capture the devastation in a photograph. It is actually very beautiful, but very, very deadly. Right now, it has rained so much, that all the ice has started to melt off the trees and it looks like it's raining ice cubes, large shards of ice are falling everywhere. From what I understand, Kansas and Missouri are going to get it even worse than we did, and we got it pretty bad!

By Carey Gillam

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - Sleet and freezing rain blanketed much of the central United States with a thick coating of ice on Tuesday, killing more than a dozen people and knocking out power to nearly a million homes and businesses.

The ice storm set in on Sunday and little relief from the wintry mess was in sight, as the National Weather Service predicted another icy blast later on Tuesday.

Oklahoma was hit the hardest. About 592,000 customers there lost electricity service, including more than 200,000 in Oklahoma City alone, according to the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management. At least 12 people died in storm-related accidents and one man died of exposure to the cold.

The power outages paralyzed parts of the most important U.S. oil hub, threatening supplies to the region's oil refineries, although industry sources said the area's refiners were still operating normally.

President George W. Bush issued an emergency declaration for the state, giving local governments in Oklahoma access to federal resources.

Residents described harrowing traffic pileups on ice-slick roadways, streets littered with downed trees, whole neighborhoods gone dark, and the persistent popping sounds of tree limbs breaking under the weight of ice.

"We don't have any heat. No lights. Nothing. We have nothing at all," said Kathy Nash, a 30-year-old advertising executive whose home lost power on Monday.

She and her husband had been making do with flashlights and candles and layers of warm clothes. "It's cold," she added.

In Missouri, icy conditions left 170,000 without power, according to Susie Stonner, spokeswoman for the state Emergency Management Agency. The state had one traffic death due to the storm, she said.

"The tree debris with the icing is causing a lot of problems," said Stonner. "The power companies keep working to fix the lines and restore power but then the trees coming crashing down again."

In Kansas, 90,000 homes and businesses were without power as up to a half-inch of ice blanketed most of the state. The Kansas National Guard delivered generators to nursing homes and sewage treatment centers lacking electricity, Kansas Division of Emergency Management spokeswoman Sharon Watson said.

In the tiny town of Larned, Kansas, many of the 4,000 residents' homes were damaged by falling trees.

"It is a pretty ugly sight right now. It looks like a tornado passed through," said Jason Murray, who helps manage a cattle feeding operation there.

The National Weather Service said significant accumulations of ice were expected through Tuesday as a cold air mass remained stalled over Kansas into central and northern Missouri.

(Reporting by Ben Fenwick in Oklahoma City, Carey Gillam in Kansas City, and Bob Burgdorfer in Chicago, editing by Patricia Zengerle)

OMG BTM I just saw this post. Sorry I have been away. I am glad you are okay. It is strange though how something so beautiful can be so deadly.

Please take care of yourself. I am sure you cannot go out with those conditions. If there is anything you need that I can help with please let me know.

Awww, thanks, but we are fine and fortunate! We never lost power, but we have a couple of guests with us that did! I was out and about in the worst of it, and really, it wasn't too bad. I wouldn't recommend it for other people, but I learned to drive in this stuff, in Chicago. Mostly though, I'm pretty sure I have extra divine protection, always ~ and for that I am extremely grateful!

I heard a reporter today compare the devastation he witnessed here to that of the horrors he saw in New Orleans after Katrina. I thought of you Spring. This is nothing like Katrina, not at all. Even though so many here lost power, and there certainly is a lot of damage from fallen limbs, at least when it's all said and done, there will be houses to go back to and peoples' lives will carry on without much interuption. I thought the comparison offensive. They always make it sound worse than it actually is on the news, except when it is really, really bad, and then for some weird reason, they downplay it. *sigh*

I am so glad you are all doing well.

I have to say though, that the photographs of all the ice are frighteningly beautiful. I know when it melts it will leave a mess, but at this point in time it has a strange beauty about it.

Thank you for sharing those.