Still no electricity. Furnace is acting up because it doesn’t like the generator. The cost of a storm like this is in more than just dollars. It’s in sanity.
Here’s some statistics I heard this morning. I know there are more and perhaps better ones, but this gives you an idea. (I appologize if these numbers are incorrect – this is what I’ve heard as of Tuesday morning.)
One hardware store in this town of 12,000 people has sold $177,000.00 in chainsaws and generators over the past week. That’s just one of the half a dozen or so hardware stores in town.
As of Tuesday morning 991 homes are still without power.
2,000 power poles snapped or otherwise are unusable.
120 linemen have come to help us out, from across Minnesota and even, I believe, from South Dakota. The hotel parking lots (at night only!) are solid with power trucks. The image of all those trucks made me cry. We are so thankful for all that is being done to get us back into the 21st century!
I know, I know – we can live without electricity. We’ve proven that this week. But it sure is nice.
Here’s my daughter’s take on the storm – in her exact words:
Electricity. A necessity we take for granted. The power has been out for 6 days and it still is.
We had a HUGE ICE STORM. Plus we had a SNOWSTORM after that!
There are MANY trees down, all over the place.
Having the power out is scary. Mr. Al Oberloh [the mayor of Worthington] said, “Worthington will never look the same again.” I agree.
I live in the country, so we didn’t have rolling blackouts [as they had in town]. We just had no electricity at all. Our power lines are [broken down] and buried underneath lots of snow.
I believe that the electricity people are pretty AWESOME. They worked for like 24 hours straight to get power back on [for those in town].
The power went out at like 9:00 Tuesday night. It’s still out. Oh well. They have to get other pepole before us.
I think that I will remember this forever.
THANK YOU, ELECTRIC PEOPLE!!!
By Katie O’Donnell. Age 11
Making the mundane entertaining.
A fine day for an epiphany 
Glad to hear you are safe – Stay Warm:)
Thank you!
That Katie sure is maintaining a positive attitude, putting others before herself. You taught her well, dear Gretchen. Being without power for one week has to be difficult, just plain difficult. Hang in there, dearest friend. If only you lived closer; we have two empty bedrooms AND power.
🙂 Thanks for the offer! And yes, I was pleased with Katie’s perspective – and I smiled a lot at her CAPITAL LETTERS!!!
I can’t believe you are still without power. It must have been some storm for it to be taking this long to be re-connected. It really does remind how reliant we have become on modern conveniences. Our generation seems to have lost its survival skills xx
Yes, indeed – it’s hard to NOT have what we’re used to having. It’s not like in the “olden days” because they didn’t miss what they didn’t have! They were used to no power!
Wow – and here am I complaining about the lack of rain!! We seem to get power outages from time to time but usually only for a few hours and as it never snows here your experience is really outside my comprehension. I admire your resilience.
Oh, you’re kind. I’ve sure never had anything like this out here before – it’s not fun. I think that resilience is really the only option, you know? Freaking out helps no one!
Dearest Gretchen, You are all in our prayers! I echo Audrey’s comment/offer. We really don’t realize what we have until we no longer have it! Warm hugs…..Doreen
Yes…we take so much for granted, don’t we? I suppose I will again, but I hope I’ll have a little more appreciation for it all!
These recent weather events are definitely overwhelming!
What a delight, reading Katie’s account and her thanks for the help as well as her generous that they have to help other people and then they’ll help her. Wonderful!
Thank you! She’s a good kid. 🙂