Saturday, December 22, 2007

Merry Christmas from the Empire



And Fred

Monday, December 10, 2007

The Great Tulsa Ice Storm of 2007

We all knew it was coming, and boy did it come.

It all started last night around midnight. I was at Jerilyn's watching her newly fixed cable TV. We were watching Tom Brokaw's special on the History Channel about the year 1968. During a commercial we did a quick switch to the local weather channel to see what was happening (besides the loud pounding of freezing rain on the roof.) A few seconds into it, Bzzzzzt, power gone, back on ..., off ..., on for a few seconds, bzzzzt, off. Hmmm. About a minute later, a quick on and final bzzzt. Power gone permanently. Luckily Jerilyn had picked up some logs for the fireplace (already burning) so we had light and heat, and it was actually quite cozy.

Standing outside in the darkness, one could hear the eerie thunder and see the flashes of lightning. Every once in a while, seen by me and others I talked to (even through the evening today), would be a green flash, representing another power transformer blowing up.


Power Transformer Blowing up Caught by Skycam 6 - Tulsa

Seeing as we weren't going to see the rest of the Tom Brokaw special, we hunkered down by the fire, scraggly dog "Alfie " in tow.

We both awoke at the same time to a loud snap, followed by what seemed to be only a few feet away of loud cracking, snapping, and crashing. The whole time praying it didn't come down on us. When it stopped, we went outside to assess the damage. Her tall and old pear tree had broken down the middle into three pieces. A large one falling on the wooden fence, pretty much destroying a large part of it, the second tipping sideways onto and being supported by her and her neighbors gate's fence, and the third resting itself right across the roof, only causing what luckily appears to be some gutter damage.

Our part of town did not seem to get hit as badly as the North side though, apparently whole trees uprooted is common there. Here is an amazing video from a local news channel A tree snaps right behind Channel 2's Julie Chin (raw video).

They are now saying that there are about 180,000 people without power in the Tulsa area, and the Public Service Company of Oklahoma saying it could take up to a week to restore power to everyone. One statistic has even said, "One in three people in Oklahoma are without power." A hard worker and friend at work said today that he was "having lot of company tonight." Later he got a phone call notifying him that his power was out also.

The Tulsa airport was closed today, everything in or out canceled, no power, and of course no de-icers for the airplanes.

AP News

The happy ending is that my place of work (where today I figured out the folly of my ways of confusing sidereal time with solar time), and my apartments on the hill, both have power (for now *knock knock*) Is very strange though as nearly everything across the street from them (my grocery store looking out my window is running on generators), in between of, and looking out from is as black as night. Quite peaceful actually.


A View of Tulsa Mayhem

UPDATE: To celebrate Armageddon, Jerilyn just came back with a gingerbread house making kit.
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