Out of the Darkness

I have just lived through one of my worst nightmares. I live out in the country and am on a well. When power goes out, I can't get water. I heat the house with the woodstove, so heat is not a concern, water is. Especially with 4 horses who consume roughly 50 gallons per day. I have always worried about how I would get water for the horses in an extended power outage.

Last Thursday, the 11th, we had an ice storm. There really wasn't any warning that it was going to be as bad as it was until the evening forecast. The forecast was for a wintry mix, but on the evening news I heard the meteoroligist say that the Boston area and south was going to get 5" of rain. As he said that, it occurred to me that if Boston was going to get 5" of rain, did that mean that my area was going to get FIVE INCHES of ICE?!?! EEEEK!! I knew that would be a disaster! But, at that point, it was already icing up outside, so it was too late to make a run to the store for things like batteries and canned soup. :-(

Sure enough, a little after 8:00 pm the power went out. I discovered that I only had 4 batteries in the house, 2 of which went into the flashlight so that I could maneuver around the house and out to the barn to check on the horses. My radio takes 6 batteries so I couldn't even listen to the radio. Sigh...

I didn't sleep at all last night. It sounded like a war zone outside. There would be a loud CRACK, then a crashing sound as a tree crashed to the ground. I am surrounded by woods, so I was hearing cracks close by and farther off in the woods. A few times the whole house shook. I'm very fortunate that there are no large trees near the house, but I worried about the horse stalls? Did something hit the shed? Were the horses ok? I kept getting up and trying to look out the window but it was too dark and the ice was coming down much too heavily to see anything. I could hear Jeeves outside, he preferred to be outside rather than in his stall and I can't really blame him, although I did worry about how wet he was getting. He had his winter blanket on, but still, he would be drenched.

Morning and daylight finally came. I was greatly relieved to see all 4 horses were fine. No cuts, no one was colicking due to stress. Lance was unnerved and jumpy as a cat, but that's normal for him. I had a couple of boards broken and one section of electric wire had broken, but I was very, very lucky that was all the damage I had. Alot of big limbs and sections of trees in the paddocks, or outside the paddock leaning against the fence. But, not much damage at all.

The worst of it was over, but every once in a while the top of a tree or a large limb would suddenly snap and come tumbling down. I made my way down my driveway to the street and couldn't believe what I saw. Tree limbs all over the road. Trees down. Limbs and trees balancing precariously on power lines. Power lines down. I had to pick my way slowly through all the debris just to get to my neighbor across the street. He had a tree through his living room window. Another one had hit his roof. The power lines had been ripped off the side of his house and siding had also been pulled off.

We couldn't believe what we were seeing. I was completely dismayed at what I was seeing. I knew it was going to be a while before the power was back on. The stock tanks were pretty full, so I knew the horses were good for water until Sunday probably even Monday morning. But, then what was I going to do? I made my way back to the house, sat down on the couch and burst into tears. I have never felt so alone and so isolated. And, I hope never to feel that way again.

To be continued...