"Ice Storm 2009"

Neat icicles, but the electric line weather mast is bent somewhat and notice the electrical drop line and the cable line are not going straight across. In the photo below you can see why these utility lines are not going across like they should. At the far left, center there is a brown pointed stump that used to be our rather large Dogwood Tree... gone forever. The closer utility pole is in the alley - the tree limbs go from about four foot from the back side of the house all the way to the alley. The back garage is completely covered by tree limbs... it is directly in front of the alley utility pole.

Tree in upper right hand corner is a very, very large Silver Maple Tree... all of the fallen limbs in my yard is about 1/5th. of that tree in my neighbor's yard. Limbs fell in his yard and the neighbor's yard on the other side. About 3/5ths. of the approx. 200 year old tree is still standing!

Looking from the back to the front and the street, you get a look at the damage to our White Pine, a big limb fell blocking the front door! - Photos by JGWest

"The TSGS Cruiser Blog Master is Back!"

Power came back on about 2 hours ago. We are running around the house turning on lights and marveling about it. TV is a very interesting item after nearly 4 days. Heat is a very pleasant feeling. You can have heat going and the coffee perking all at the same time. We take all of these things for granted. God has never let us suffer more than we can handle, and with His help we went through this quite well.

The repair crews for the utility company just quickly cut a path through the fifty or so big limbs crossing our back yard on top of our power line and pulled it back up to their pole in the alley. Two hours later they had everyone hooked up in our sector and they turned on the power. It sure was a special moment. This was the first time we have had to endure this long without electric power in the winter (last night it was down to 15 degrees or colder). We were warm as toast under 10 blankets all night, but it sure was cold this morning.

This article and yesterday's is not all that genealogical, but it does provide a little bit of historical documentation of the Great Ice Storm of the tri-state area. - JGWest

"No Power for TSGS Cruiser Blog Master"

Wed. morning at about 3AM our power to the house (from the down line transformers) went out due to the terrible ice & snow storm. Neighbors across the street has allowed us to run a cord across to them to give us a little electric power until ours come on. We got the living room temp up to 50 degrees with a small space heater that will keep us from having freezing water pipes (leaving the water trickling to keep it from freezing, as well). This morning we were able to perk some coffee, turn it off and turn the small space heater back on. I knew our cable was ok since the phone works. I tested the TV this moring and it works, so I came in to the computer to check some of the email and put something on the blog to let the world know that TSGS is still blogging along! We should be able to survive... this weekend is expected to get warmer. Our back yard is completely full of huge limbs the size of trees. The branches reach 10 to 12 feet into the air! Our un-attached garage is completely covered in fallen limbs. Our Pine Tree in the front yard lost a lot of large limbs, too. Across the street down the block looks as bad. Many have had trees crash into or through their homes. We are lucky so far.

We are hoping that the the electric line from the power pole is ok, it is pulled down by the limbs like the cable, but seems connected at both ends. We will know when they get power to us. Our utility company Vectren reports that they have about 1/2 million homes without power in southern Indiana and Kentucky. - JGWest (turning off computer and turning space heater back on) Brrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!

"We Got a Little Snow in Evansville"

I am a little late getting this online this morning, we had to dig out the car. As you can see there was a little digging to be done in the picture below. Thanks to my neighbor, I got to the car and it started right up. I figure this time next week, I might get to drive it out of this spot.

So, I had to walk to the office. In the photo below, I almost lost my lunch bag of yogurt! The doctor said my back will be as good as new in a few months.


None of the above happened to me... it is only a joke. But, it did take a good 45 minutes to get all the ice off the windows of the car. They decided to close the office today where I work, but I wanted to be ready to go in case of an emergency. I took the car around the immediate area (the side streets) and then on Kentucky Avenue and my little 4-wheel drive Pontiac Vibe did quite well, but I felt the wheels slipping as it went along. I saved the photos above for our first nice snow (we only got about 1-2 inches of snow on top of a lot of sleet and a little on top of the snow, but more is to come). During slippery, snowy weather, if you have to get out at all, please drive carefully and allow plenty of time and distance to stop.

The above photos come from Strange Dangers.com with all kinds of unbelievable photos like the two above. - JGWest