The Great Ice Storm of 09 - Day 7 1/2

Hang on to you hats folks and bundle up, its going to be a cold one! We are looking at lows in the lower teens tonight and another full day tomorrow below freezing. The power situation for me is the same (half the house with power, no furnace). While the house was at a toasty 66 last night, I'm fighting to keep it above 60 tonight. To be honest, 60 is not bad (I'm in a t-shirt) and I could live with this situation for a while but I hope it is warm enough to my waterlines under the house from freezing (yep, I've got several faucets dripping).

The local shelters are expecting more people tonight as the lingering cold weather is pushing more people out of their homes.

The temperature today stayed in the teens and a cold wind decided to blow through the region, keeping the wind chill close to 0 and shaking loose some of those loose branches still remaining in the trees. Once again, falling branches apparently have an affinity for power lines, causing a fresh batch of consternation to the crews still trying to clean up from last week.

Kenergy (the electrical company serving most of the counties in this region) started with 42,000 accounts without power, now the number stands at 22,000. So, after nearly a week of work, half of the people who lost power still don't have it back. OMU (Owensboro's electric company) has power to 60% of the residents. Statewide, over 200,000 still don't have power. The CEO of Kenergy is stating that out-of-town lineman that also worked on the Katrina disaster believe the destruction here is about the same.

Apparently Owensboro and Daviess County can consider themselves lucky. 90% of Webster county is still without power and other communities aren't even that lucky.

I noticed several people at the gas stations filling up their gas cans so their are still plenty of generators out their cranking away.

I myself put in a full day of work today. I started to notice yesterday that most people at work and about town seem tired, some people including myself are on edge (I won't be at ease until I have full power back). I was making smalltalk to the Fedex guy today and asked him how cold it was outside . . ."it's cold. . .I need to be wearing more layers. . .I'm living out of a suitcase and it doesn't have enough layers for today." Now Fedex guys are used to working hard in the cold, but you could tell this guy was tired.

In what has turned out to be a stroke of luck for me, I have a vacation planned starting Saturday. I am heading south (Bahamas) and staying there for a week. . .if I can just make it till then. I'll try to soak up some extra sun for my friends I'm leaving behind.

Once again, I am extremely lucky to have what I have.