Winter Storm Advisory: Day One (Photo Essay)

Well, I happen to be in that lovely area of the country that got hit hard with ice and snow Tuesday and Yesterday. Tuesday was the first day of it.

During the morning Tuesday, we were woken up at 4am by a loud BANG that startled us out of a deep sleep. Turns out the branches on the tree over the apartment were starting to break off of it. Lovely thing to wake up to, for sure. That continued well into the morning and slowed a little during the day.

All we got Tuesday, really, was ice, but that was more than enough. It made all the trees heavy and they started falling over on powerlines and such.

We had power until around 2pm when the power cut out. It came back on around 3 and then cut out again around 4 and then it was gone for the rest of the evening.

That night, the city declared a state of emergency and all the businesses were asked to close (since they didn't have power anyway), and people were advised to stay home. KMart, however, that lovely place where I work, decided that we could stay open anyway. We emailed the higher ups asking if we could go home since we were in a state of emergency, but they said no. Oh well. I had to work until 9:30.

Driving home was extremely weird. It took me a little while to realize exactly what was different--and then I realized that everything was dark and there were no lights. Duh. xD None of the traffic lights were on, either, and it was really dangerous conditions to drive through. I almost hit a large tree branch on the way home because it had fallen across the road. Luckily, I only hit the thin branches at the top of it...the bulk of the branch was on the other side of the road.

Alright, and now for all of those that are interested and are waiting for the lovely pictures, here they are:

Here are all the down branches that fell in front of the house from an aerial view out of the apartment.

And here are the branches from outside the house.

And this is the little bush tree thingie out from of our apartment. It's completely covered with ice and such.

And just so you can appreciate just how much ice is covering this tree, I got a few close-up shots of the branches, and you can see how thick the ice is on the branches.

And here are the branches that fell off the tree in back of the apartment in the parking lot.

And these are the branches off the big tree that's over the apartment whose branches kept falling and waking us up.

And then the trees in the side yard with their down branches.

You can see in these pictures where the branches are getting ready to snap off the trees as it is.

And the pine tree behind the house next to us was leaning a bit precariously under all the weight.

Even the grass was completely frozen.

And then, of course, there were the cars, which we had to dig out of the ice in order to go to work. Here's some icicles dangling off the bottom of the car.

And the cars themselves.

And a close-up of the ice on the windshield.

All in all, it was a pretty stressing night. The only good thing was that we had more than enough candles, and they made a rather romantic atmosphere, so it gave us time to spend together and relax and catch up on things. ;)