Winter Storm

Just to let everyone know, I survived the Louisville Ice Storm 2009 with no problems. I stayed in my dark and cold apartment despite the many warnings from campus security. I know it's not the best idea in the world to try to stick it out through such conditions without heat or electricity but honestly, it wasn't that bad. I have a down comforter and a Mag Lite flashlight, so this Boy Scout was able to stay quite comfortable and safe throughout the entire power outage.

I did spend one night with my friend Michael who had power the whole time, but to tell the truth, I was colder there than in my own apartment. It was my own fault though. To keep my load light, I only took a small blanket to his house and just slept on the floor. I slept well but my feet were a little cold. While in my apartment, the temperature was quite low (I meant to get a thermometer to see just how cold, but never did) but goose down does wonders for keeping heat in so I was toasty warm the whole time. I don't know how cold it did get but I do know that there was a little bit of ice forming in the sink where I had the faucets dripping. Some of the water that splashed to the side would freeze.

The initial snow storm wasn't bad but the second day everything turned to ice and there was accumulation of ice on some trees and power lines that was over an inch thick, by my unofficial measurement. There were thousands of people here without power after the ice did its thing. As a matter of fact there are still a lot of people without power...or "without electric," as the locals say. We didn't know when we'd get power restored. Sunday afternoon, I saw 2 trucks that made me more hopeful about it. I saw an Alabama Power and then a Georgia Power truck. I knew once them good ole boys got to work up here, there would flat be some changes made.

I was right. About 3 hours after I saw those 2 trucks, my power came back on. I was without power for 4 days so I was very happy for it to come back on. The heat was off long enough for the entire building to get really cold so it has taken all night last night and prettymuch all day today for it to get back to a normal temperature inside. Now it's toasty warm and so I'll be able to sleep with my fan on.

I did have to do some repairs to a window sash to keep some of the cold air out. The other day, Kevin and Tracey noticed that the top sash of the window in my living room had about an inch open gap at the top. They had stuffed some towels in the gap to try to cut out some of the cold air. I found a nail in the window that had been put in by someone who had no idea how to use a hammer. The nail was bent about halfway down and it was obvious some doofus had worked on it. I removed that nail and put one in a better location. Now, that icy draft is gone.

My house guests really had no reason to stick around for the duration, so after a day of no power or heat, they quickly escaped to warmer climates and electrified conditions in Georgia. They surprised kin folks by showing up unannounced and stayed for a couple of days. Classes here were canceled through today so they made their way back up and arrived a few hours ago. Now we're all contemplating bed since Tracey and I have class tomorrow.

Tomorrow is my long day. I have 3 classes, convocation chapel service, and work tomorrow. It's probably going to be a really long and tiring day so I'd better not spend too much more time on here. I'll just let everyone know that things are getting back to some semblance of normalcy around here and we're going to be able to get the semester going again without too much interruption.

So, I've been here in Louisville for almost 7 months and I've gone multiple days without power on 2 separate and distinct times. So far, Louisville doesn't have such a good track record but I still like it here. It's adventurous, if nothing else.

Casey