The Great Ice Storm of 09 - Day 5 1/2

I've got power! Well sort of. . . My area was put back on the grid this morning. However, the line leading to my house was hit by a falling limb and is partially down. The force of the blow did some damage to the weatherhead leading to the meter of my house and apparently pulled a wire loose. I think I have two of the three phase lines connected to my house which means half my house has power. Unfortunately the half that doesn't is the part that powers my furnace. I can run electric heaters now so the propane burners have been turned off (its up to a toasty 66F in the house). Tonight i'll get to sleep in my own bed and be able to stretch out. The couch I was sleeping on was kind of cramped. Tomorrow starts the quest to get my weatherhead/meter fixed. I'm sure Kenergy (the electric company) will have to be involved so it may be a while. Then it will be time to tackle all the downed limbs.

It really appears like the utility companies are starting to make major headway, large chunks of the grid have lit up over the past 36 hours. OMU (the city) appears to be making more progress than Kenergy (the county), but I imagine their grid was not as expansive and susceptible to tree damage. I believe most of the city will try to get back to normal operations tomorrow. The city school system is planning on opening up Tuesday, I don't know about the county schools, I would imagine they will be closed until next week at least. The outlying counties are also starting to get some of their basic institutions, hospitals, gas stations, grocery stores, etc. . . on line. In Muhlenberg county, they were not expecting to have any power for another three weeks or so but they figured a way to reroute some power and some of their vital infrastructure is also getting power. I believe that the utilities have knocked out the easy problems now and are going to be starting on some of the more complicated areas.

Cell phone service has been working reliably since saturday, it also appears like the phone system is working pretty well. I don't know or care about the cable tv system.

There have been a few, not too many, house fires, possibly due to failure of temporary heating, one person that I know personally has lost everything but the clothes on their back and their vehicle. There have also been some cases of carbon monoxide poisoning, but I haven't heard of any deaths yet. . .

Now to curmudge - One of my friends had a superbowl party tonight thanks to a generator, a big screen TV, and satellite television. They live in a more remote area of the county. As a was driving to their house, I did have to drive over four or five sets of downed lines. Multiple rows, think five to ten in a row, of powerpoles in that area had been splintered to toothpicks. As I looked over theses poles on my drive, I noticed they were all older poles. The poles in my area of the county were all relatively new, as a matter of fact all the poles towards town are relatively new and none of them were downed. As a matter of fact, most of the poles that I have witnessed down looked to be older poles. This brings me to the belief that, when all this is over, their should at least be an investigation as to whether or not Kenergy (and OMU, and the other utility companies affected) have been properly maintaining their infrastructure. Of course, most of this older infrastructure is probably now being upgraded, although it is a little too late. I'm not trying to fault the utility companies for these massive problems, but I think a rigorous review of the situation should be undertaken to determine whether or not this situation could have been prevented. If it could, then heads should roll. With that said, I must say that the utility companies, given the current situation, have been doing a phenomenal job, I can't imagine tackling the task they have on hand now. With all this economic stimulus money floating around, I think the least the federal government could do, given the fact that they seem to have done little to nothing during the first parts of this disaster, could feed a little of that money into utility infrastructure upgrades for Kentucky.

Thats all for now, going to work for a bit tomorrow, probably going to take some vacation for some of this week just to get the home situation better stabilized. All-in-all I've gone almost five days without true heat or power but haven't missed a hot shower or meal yet so I consider myself extremely lucky.