Ice Storm Causes Destruction in My Town

On Monday night, my little town of Springdale, Arkansas was hit with a devastating ice storm. We knew the storm was coming but we had no idea of the damage we would experience from this. Tuesday morning, 1/2" to 2" of ice had accumulated on the roads, sidewalks and trees. Schools and businesses were closed because it was too dangerous to try to drive. My daughter, Brianna and I were inside our home listening to the trees make popping noises as the branches collapsed under the weight of the ice. We are photograph nuts and we've never seen anything like this, so we snapped pictures like crazy outside. Little did we know that many of our pictures would be the last of our home with it's big beautiful ornamental pear trees in the front yard. As we snapped pictures, we watched our huges trees buckle under the ice. One of the trees split in half; part of it landed on my car; the other part of it landed on my son's car. My entire neighborhood experienced damage like we have never seen before and it literally looks like a bomb went off in my neighborhood. My entire town and the surrounding areas lost electricity on Tuesday. It is now Saturday, and I anxiously wait for my power to be restored. Word has it that 95% of my town will have power restored by midnight tonight (Saturday). Our Governor, Mike Beebe, has declared our town a Federal Disaster area. I understand that there will be funding available for clean up and repairs but that's really all I know at this time.

In any case, I am thankful for the use of my town's library computer today. I am a big news junkie and I literally feel like I have been cut off from the world for the past 5 days. Between that and the cabin fever, this has been a frustrating experience. Thankfully, my family and friends are all alright. We are also fortunate enough to live in a neighborhood where people still help one another. We don't have to worry about looting or anything like that. Neighbors I have never met before came over and sawed tree branches in my yard, helping to remove them from the vehicles and the street. In times like this, it is comforting to know that people are willing to help one another when times get tough.

Once I am able to access my computer from home, I'll be posting pictures from the storm on Facebook and Flickr. Please stay tuned.....