Last Thursday night the St Louis area had the worst ice storm in 25 years.  Overnight Thursday hundreds of thousands of people's power supply was interrupted....and today, 5 days after the storm, 240,000 people in the St Louis greater metropolitan area alone are STILL without power. 

The local news has been reporting deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning.  One person had a gasoline powered generator in their home and was overcome by the carbon monoxide fumes - and subsequently died.  Another couple were heating their room by burning charcoal in a wok when they were overcome by CO fumes - and they too died.  Firefighters called to the scene reported that the CO levels in the room were 10 times the lethal level.  I thought that it was simple common sense not to burn things in your home or use gasoline powered equipment without adequate ventilation - I mean, you wouldn't go start your car in your living room and then sit next to it with the windows and doors shut BECAUSE of the CO threat.  I guess what I consider to be common sense isn't universal. 

Where I live we got really very lucky; we had power all throughout the storm.  Our trees, however, were decimated by the ice.  The weight of 1/2" of ice on all the branches and boughs caused a LOT of limbs to come crashing down.  Some people had trees fall on their homes or in their yards, causing minor damage.  The younger trees either snapped completely in two or fell over, causing their root balls to come up and out of the ground. 

It's been dangerous to be outside every day since the storm hit.  On Friday the ice was causing limbs to fall, on Saturday it thawed and big chunks of ice were falling from trees and houses - even from car tops.  We followed a van into town on Saturday and had to swerve out of the path of a big chunk of ice that came flying off of the top of it.  Sunday it thawed again, so it was advisable to NOT be around trees and housing eaves and soffits.  Today it is bitterly cold - so all the ice that melted yesterday re-froze last night, and there's now sheet ice on sidewalks and roads, making for treacherous conditions in some areas.

My brother was in town on business yesterday and he came out to visit us.  He was in awe over the storm and had me email all of my photos of the ice to him so he could show his friends and our family back in the UK.  It was a really good visit, and we were all glad to see him.  He came carrying bags of Christmas gifts from my mum and aunty, and I in turn gave him a bag of gifts to take back to the UK.  He ate breakfast and stayed all morning before heading off to a meeting.  It was the first time I'd seen him since our dad died, so we had a chat about that.   I told him how thankful I was that he and his family were taking such good care of her.  He'd helped her with the benefit forms to apply for death and funeral assistance (both her and my dad are pensioners and are entitled to a certain amount of relief from the government) and she was amazed at hoe much she got back.  Dad's funeral cost just shy of 2000 pounds, and mum was expecting about a third of that back in relief form.  When the check came, however, it was for 1200 pounds, which she was just tickled with.  She's also had her rent reduced to nil per month, and her council and poll taxes have been reduced to ten pounds each - they were in the hundreds of pounds.  So, she's doing well financially.  When I talked to her yesterday she said that the exchange rate was really good right now (almost $2 for every pound) so she's going to buy some dollars in anticipation of coming to see us next spring.  She's going to be doubling her money, which makes me very happy.

We also talked about my uncle.  His wife was my dad's sister - she died last January from what would have been considered medical negligence over here in the US.  She had bowel cancer, but her family physician kept telling her she was simply constipated and sending her home.  It wasn't until she had been in agony for 2 months that he figured something more sinister was going on and sent her to the hospital via an ambulance.  By the time she got there, her intestines had ruptured, and she died on the operating table.  I cannot even begin to imagine the pain that she must've been in.   Anyway, my uncle hasn't progressed through the grief process; he's still got her clothes and her wheelchair and their home is exactly as it was when she was alive.  He's going to the crematorium to sit by her memorial plaque at least once every day and talks about her has if she's on vacation somewhere and will be coming home at any minute.  It's sad, and I wish that I could do something to help.  As an aside, my dad's ashes were scattered in the same place as his sister's ashes....which gives me a strange kind of comfort.

I've taken some more photos:

This is the shot I'm hoping to use as a front for our Christmas cards this year.  I love how it came out - and this is one of the ones my brother liked so much.  I can see why.

This was taken on Saturday, and shortly after this was taken I got nailed by this icicle that fell from one of the branches:

That leaf is pretty big; about 6" or so long.  I'm just glad the icicle didn't cause much damage to my head!

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the basketball net thawed enough to let the ball drop through on Saturday afternoon.