Ice Storm 09, Day 2

It;s been a crazy, scarey twenty-four hours with Ice Storm 2009 raging, so I decided to keep a diary to let you know what we've been through here at the compound and at work.

1:20 am Awakend by the sound of a bomb landing at The Compound. Found out it was a gigantic limb that fell and hit the front of Miss Rosemary's house, ripping off the gutters, siding, electric meter, and taking down two unidentified power lines
2:00 am After careful examination, determined that Miss Rosemary did have electricity, so the family attempted to go back to bed.
2:01 - 6:30 am Laid in bed but was wide awake listening to more "bombs" being dropped at The Compound; as soon as we heard a limb crash, we were up running for the windows to see if anything had been hit.
6:35 am Preliminary inspection determined the driveway was impassable due to many gigantic limbs. A mid-sized limb was spotted on top of the front of the Blazer under the carport. We still had electricity at The Compound, and had received an additional half inch of ice during the night and early morning.
7:20 am Arrived at work safe and sound. On the 8 mile route, estimated half of the businesses and home are without power, including ZCO. The plant is dark, but the office is up and running thanks to the generator. Even though the Governer and Mayor are telling businesses to stay closed today, we are still open.
8:00 am The freezing rain and sleet changed over to snow. As if all of the ice isn't bad enough, now we're expecting 3-5 inches of snow this morning, which will make even more limbs and lines fall. Pray for us, America.
9:00 am Poked my head out the office side door and could not see the church across the street for the heavy blowing snow. We were listening to a local a.m. radio channel for news and weather updates, and LG&E said 200,000 are without power in their coverage area right now. 10:32 am The Governor repeated we are under a state of emergency, in order to keep down gas price gouging. And the Governor said only emergency vehicles out on the interstates. A quick call to The Compound found they were maintaining status quo - Dad said he can't get out to assess the damage from the limbs because more limbs are still falling.
12:01 pm The snow ended and the sun came out. My guess of total snow accumulation in our parking lot: 5 or 6 inches.
12:30 pm Started putting the emergency plan for Thursday together. There's no telling when the power will be restored in the plant, and we discovered that the big power box for our phone lines will run out of power at about noon tomorrow. So after that, we won't have any phones, internet connection nor network connections. I can only pray they let us go home early tomorrow, because it sure doesn't look like we're going home early today.
1:00 pm It was cloudy again, but at least the main road in front of ZCO was fairly clear. You couldn't make it through the parking lot, though, but at least the road was clear. Started making calls to friends in various parts of the city. After making 6 calls, only found 1 without power (Diva Stacy).
1:05-4:30 pm Did my best to stay awake, while not having anything to do. In fact, all I've done since I got here at 7:20 was read.
4:50 pm Almost cried when I saw all of the gigantic limbs covering and blocking the driveway. It was way less scary this morning in the dark. It will take us days to get the driveway cleared off.
5:45 pm Raised our glasses of wine in a toast to Dad on his birthday and to the fact that we still have power when so many around us don't.