Yup. Stay indoors and plan gardens. That's what we do.

Well wishes are so nice. We were ready here and had plenty of wood on hand for heat, and cans for food and an old Corning Ware coffee maker to use on the wood stove for hot tea and coffee! It's nice to be back from the dark :)

The snow was lovely at first, but the long ice storm was the mess maker. Power still out here & running generator for essentials like furnace alternating with refrigerator, freezer, or microwave. DSL internet is back up this afternoon off & on.

I went outside for the 1st time since Wednesday to look closer at fallen tree debris around the house, garden, fences, gates, chicken coop run, rabbit hutch, hobby greenhouse, raspberry trellis, and shed. WOW, what a mess we have when the snow & ice thaw enough to move branches more. I'm thankful for what wasn't damaged.

Will post pics later when my son can show me how to get them from camera to his laptop. It's amazing that no one here at camp was seriously hurt during that crazy ice storm! Our staff wore helmets when outside clearing tree debris from our roads and have body bruises from the falling ice chunks a new Northwest hazard.

Hope you're all staying safe & warm!
Corrine

We lived over there during the ice storm of '96, so I can relate. You could hear trees snapping out in the woods...it was eerie...and our power was out about a week. Luckily we had a propane heater and range so we managed.
Hope it all gets rained away soon and you don't have too much flooding.

I suffered a lot of damage due to the ice and snow. The power was out for five days, and three days prior to that, a power surge took out my computer, over-riding the surge protector. It took two days to cut the quarter mile driveway clear and another two days to get to my woodshed with my truck.... and I'm pretty handy with a chainsaw. I'm working on clearing the road that winds around the rest of my ten acres now, and I'm retired so I can devote a lot of time to it. It's going to take weeks to clean everything up. The house and outbuildings are all fine. So is the computer. A new power unit and upgraded surge protector did the trick.
Mike

Mike,
We can relate to your work load out there! Compared to the January 1992 Inaugural day storm we had fewer trees uprooted, but clearly more tree debris with 25' tree tops, limbs and branches everywhere here at camp. Our staff has worked on it every day since & it's going to take weeks if not months to finish up.

Our own backyard is now a layered carpet of fir branches and this is after we cut a path with the chainsaw to regain access to poultry coops & the rabbit hutch. Fortunately, our family & animals all remained safe during the storms.

On a positive note we have more sunlight since the trees have been windowed by the storm and we'll have even more when the topped and split trees are logged.

I posted some photos our son took that show some of the damage on another forum.

Here is a link that might be useful: pics from recent storm - scroll down until you see the red barn chicken coop

Yeah, power outages are the norm out there most winters, but the ice(and wind)storms are nasty! Just be careful out there with your chainsaws...don't be out there alone...take a buddy.
Mike, it sounds like you'll have plenty of firewood for next year!

I went to California in time to miss the whole thing. Coming back it wasn't dismal until we got to Washington. I'm thinking I should go back to California.

Of course, it isn't 115 down there right now.

I thought I would post a few pictures of the damage I incurred.

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It was like this all the way to the mailbox down on the road. I've put away a cord of wood so far and I haven't even started on the Doug Fir and Hemlock branches, other than moving them off the driveway.
Mike

My traveling companion came home to a lot of snapped off madronas. I don't remember seeing much breakage and fallen over trees from I-5 until we got well up into Washington, maybe Thurston County.