Ice Storm 2021

We heard there was going to be freezing rain but Caleb had already scheduled to work in Medford over the weekend for a good friend. He had to leave early Friday and get down there to work all day Saturday which had been in the works for a month. So when they predicted a storm we figured they would be wrong as usual anyway. Caleb left and it was already starting to get pretty icy but the storm was coming from the North so we figured he would be fine. At around 10 pm that Friday night, the major ice started. It was positively frigid outside and we started hearing branches breaking all around our house. We live under hundreds of trees it feels like. We have white oak trees everywhere and there are two huge ones that tower over our tiny house. Shelby came into my room with me and we could not sleep because of the storm. It was so loud and things kept hitting our house and it was starting to get a little scary. Shelby finally fell asleep at 2:00 am and went to her own bed. The boys were both up and in my room by 2:30 am. The storm appeared to get louder and louder. So many branches fell and hit our house that none of us slept at all. The boys cried, screamed and were really upset at some of the huge noises. It went from kind of cool to really scary for them and they did not like it. It's pretty startling when we didn't know when the next thing would hit.

I periodically went and cracked a door open to look outside. We had flashlights and stayed close to the house. I was so worried one of the huge trees would fall and crush us. It would destroy the whole house, which is something that can be fixed. But the trees are big enough to kill someone, so that made me more scared. We lost all power and internet that night. The next morning all cellphone towers quit working also.

We had so many down branches and tons of ice on the ground. It started to kind of warm up and defrost and more and more things were breaking and splitting. We had some huge things hit our house. We got two holes in our roof. We were blocked in our driveway with down trees and power lines, we had no power obviously and our cell phones didn’t work. I was home alone when the water came inside the house and leaked into our dining room from the leaking roof. And I felt very sorry for myself. I walked around outside to try and see what was happening but ice was falling and almost more branches during the meltdown than when it was freezing. But I knew I couldn’t let water keep coming inside my ceiling and my bowl system was going to be short lived.

Then I decided to dress up in my new farm attire, get my hard hat on, find my ladder, grab a tarp, and climb up on my ice crusted roof. Right after I was able to secure a tarp on my roof, I had to decide how to get down off the roof. The ladder was on a pile of ice, and my daughter who was suppose to come hold it was inside ignoring me and reading her book with so many blankets on she couldn’t even hear me. I was trying to thing about the safest way to get down, my gutters were hanging from the house so I knew I had to avoid touching them. And then I saw my parents walking up my driveway. They came at the perfect timing. They held the ladder, I crawled down. 

Then my friends came over to check on me because I didn’t respond to their texts so they reached out to Caleb and he asked them to check on me. They came and between us, we cut down about 6 trees across my driveway and moved them. Another friend showed up and took my kids to go play because they didn’t lose power. The next day Caleb and I woke up after almost no sleep, between the generator quitting working, changing bowls of leaking water, and trying to stay warm, we were exhausted but knew we had to move the branches that fell and blocked the doors so we could get in and out of the house safely. One branch alone was over 30 feet and broke a window, my deck, and caused at least two of the holes in my roof. We still had no cell service, but one by one, friends showed up. Friends with work gloves, rain gear, chainsaws, and smiles. It brings me to tears thinking about this. It was Valentines day, it was Sunday, and we thought it was going to be just the two of us. And yet car after car pulled up. We cleared the entire house and immediately around the house in a matter of a few hours. Everyone was soaked, muddy, and cold. And not one person complained, not one person.

We will be cleaning up from this for years, but honestly we feel so grateful. We feel loved from all the help. Our friends never went without a place to stay. We always had enough food. We had no power for 12 days in total. We lived at Calebs office with another family the Binghams and three of their kids. We were happy to have the extra entertainment, the companions for our kids, and the warm house. We have so many great things in our life that even the ice storm didn't get us down. if anything it raised our spirits that we have so many good friends, the right equipment, and hard work has never been something we walk away from. Hoping we keep this kind of drive for years to come, and for now we will just keep our heads down and plug away.