Ice Storm 2005....HELP!!!!!!!

[Inspector-Gadget]

Touching tribute to the armed forces, and families

Sparky and White: Great pics!!!

For all of my complaining about central New York snowstorms, I would be first to admit that ice-storms are much worse.

My sympathy to all those enduring ice storms.

Regards,

Gadget

 

[Sparky-Watts]

Well, it was supposed to get up to the 50's this weekend, but never got above freezing since the storm so far. Now they're predicting more of the same by midweek. All the ice is still on the trees and lines, not much cleanup getting done. Once it gets above freezing, we can expect more limbs and lines down. When the ice melts and drops off the lines, they have a tendency to "whip" and snap, and they say a lot of the limbs are being held up by the 1 to 1 1/2 inches of ice coating them, and once it thaws, more will come crashing down. Aside from a handful of traffic deaths, there have been 3 deaths in Wichita because of the storm. Two dead from CO poisoning, and one old man had a heart attack while trying to clean up the mess in his yard and froze solid before the neighbors found him the next morning. I've heard of some of the idiots pulling their propane grills in the house and lighting them for warmth, as well as one person who nearly burned his house down by bringing in his barbeque grill!! The number of house fires I hear on the scanner is just outrageous, seems like every 30 minutes or so, there's one somewhere in the surrounding counties. Well, if it ever warms up enough to drop the rest of the limbs and it's safe to go outside again, I've got several cleanup jobs lined up for neighbors and friends that should bring in some pretty good (tax-free) cash. I know at least 3 of the jobs will pay over $500 each, because they're big places with lots of trees down. Maybe Sparky will finally get that lift for the YJ!!

 

[berettajeep]

All of are ice has melted away. I was amazed by all of the downed trees here but seeing that one photo you took... WOW.

 

[White]

still hitting hard here.

 

[Bounty__Hunter]

Great job on the pics, really captures the power of mother nature.

 

[Sparky-Watts]

RE: Re: RE: Chevy versus Moose

Just an update: Gov. Sebelius petitioned the Prez for Federal aid, and got several counties declared disaster areas, which will help cities and counties pay for the clean up. In all, they are figuring over $50 million in damage now. In Wichita, they've been working 12 hours a day since the 7th of January to pick up all the tree limbs, and still are less than half finished. Westar Energy has now petitioned the government regulators for a rate hike to help pay for all of the downed wires. Somehow I knew they'd get more money out of this. As for the smaller towns like mine, things are pretty much cleaned up, but the skyline looks terrible with all those naked trees, and will look bad for a few years to come.

 

[Bounty__Hunter]

Re: newbie questions

Westar Energy has now petitioned the government regulators for a rate hike to help pay for all of the downed wires. Somehow I knew they'd get more money out of this.

Funny how they want to dip into everybody's pockets but their own :shock:

 

[Sparky-Watts]

Yeah, and instead of burying the lines like they should have done 20 years ago to prevent this whole mess, they're gonna use it to give their execs another raise.....and the lines are all back up on the poles, underneath the tree limbs again. There were areas of Wichita without power for 7 days following that mess. Mount Hope, albeit only 900 population, give or take, had more ice and we were only without power for about 12 hours total, 6 hours at a time. That's because our city maint. guy is smart. Anytime we had a problem with a wire, instead of fixing it and putting it back up on the pole, he buried it. We've got almost 70% of our lines buried now. They figure it would cost $20 million to do that with all of Wichita's lines, spread it out over 5 to 10 years, and that's cheap. In 5 to 10 years, with an icestorm like this each year, it could cost the city close to $250 million to keep fixing lines!!!!!!! With a population of around 400,000, that $5 million a year (over 4 or 5 years) wouldn't create much of an increase in taxes, they could even do it on a timed tax that terminates after a certain period. Nope, they'd rather......ah, heck, that's a whole 'nuther can of worms to open......