I live in the northern lower peninsula of Michigan. I love it here! There are very few natural disasters we have to worry about. Basically we deal with tornadoes, and winter storms.Tornadoes are very rare in my area, and winter storms usually aren't too bad after you get used to them.
However, on March 2nd it was quite the storm!
The rain started around 4pm, and turned into wet heavy snow shortly after. I could see the water drops on the apple tree outside my window and I knew it wasn't going to be good if it froze.
Around 9pm our power went out....and stayed out. My husband was sick with the flu and was in bed, and so were the kids. I was up, too nervous to really sleep. I don't know why, but I get all these apocalyptic thoughts running through my head when the power goes out.
Well, there was some shouting in the street... I figured it was just some neighbors talking to one another about the power. Then I heard what sounded like a gun shot. My heart started beating faster, and I got a little scared to be honest. Suddenly I hear two men outside my house, they were just across from my driveway, then another sound like a gunshot. I watched the men walk away- but I had NO clue what was going on. I stepped out on my porch, and while I stood there I could hear what sounded like a shooting range. Surely there wasn't a bunch of people with guns, so what the heck was the noise?
I walked to my backyard, and there I discovered what had been scaring me so much.
See that poor pine tree? Yep, all it's branches had been coming down! The gunshot sounds were branches falling off the trees! And this tree wasn't the only one that had troubles...there were many, many more.
When I was in my backyard I noticed that there was a strange orange glow coming from a couple blocks down. It looked like flames, but I figured it was plow truck strobe lights since I didn't smell any smoke. After a while I found out it WAS indeed a fire. A line had gone down and started a fire, as well as a transformer catching.
On Saturday, March 3, we were still without power. Around 1:30am the power came back on...for 8 minutes, then was out again after a few zapping sounds. The snow was piling up higher and higher...and getting heavier and heavier.
I had to be up in the morning to deliver mail, so I tried to get some sleep. When morning came, I got up...and dug out my car.
It didn't seem too bad, but the heavy wet snow had fallen off of the vehicle and onto the ground. When I walked to the backyard to check on the tree the snow was up to my knees! I was able to see the ground the day before! My estimate is that we got 18 inches overnight.
Well, I went to work, only to be sent home for the time being- the truck hadn't been there and would be a couple hours late. My house was without power, but the post office a couple blocks away had theirs, thankfully.
At this point I had no idea what the extent of the damage was, but I knew that the plows hadn't gotten much of the roads, and they were going to have to work hard.
Our truck came in at 10:30, so I went back into work. We knew it was going to be a challenging day, but it was darn near impossible. No mail was able to be delivered, where the plows HAD been, it wasn't possible to access the mailbox, and where the plows hadn't been- you just couldn't go. There were so many trees down and power lines down...it was honestly creepy.
When I got back home, my family and I snuggled down and tried to see what we could do to keep warm. No power means no heat for us since our furnace needs the fan to get the heat into the home. We also had no hot water...but we were lucky enough to have a gas stove and we could light the stovetop with a lighter. We boiled water and it really helped the house stay warmer!
The next morning we were still without electricity. We decided to get out of the house a little bit since the roads were pretty much plowed. It was amazing to see the damage... so many power lines down, and trees! There are a lot of trees that will have a difficult time surviving now. There were trees down on cars and houses.
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Flattened Lilac bush. :(
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| A group of pine trees that look like a tornado went through them, but it was just snow! |
Thankfully, 46 hours after we lost power it was restored. But a lot of northern Michigan was still without power even this morning! Stores were sold out of generators, heaters, gasoline, batteries, water...it was a rough few days for our area!
