In an attempt to stay awake on this horribly irrelevant conference call, I thought I'd read the boards. That's not working so maybe typing will.

Been a hell of a week after the Ice storm Monday and Tuesday. Over 200,000 without power at the peak and we had more phone equipment without power than generators to keep them running. I've been spending my days and nights in our Emergency Operations Center coordinating generators, fuel and manpower, etc. Short breaks for sleep but with most everybody sent into the field there wasn't many left to make a restful schedule for the ERC.

A big thanks to our sister Bell-Aliant provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick for sending over over 20 additional generators, as many trucks and probably 30 men to help out!!!

our biggest scare was yesterday when something happened (which I am unable to speculate on in print) at our main generating plant and the entire province went black for about 4-5 hours. If that hadn't been fixed, the next call was the Military. Luckily, they got it back on.

We are currently down to only 7 pieces of equipment out there on generators keeping dial tone and cell coverage going for their respective areas but most of the Island has power again.

Well, most except my road. My area came back up yesterday afternoon but my little stretch of road is still down. My drive in this morning I spotted a tripped fuse on one pole. I wonder where I can buy a 30' fiberglass rod??? With 4000 still in the dark (Maritime Electric did awesome work to get this down from 200k,) I doubt my one tripped fuse is anywhere near the top of the list.

Nice day today but a bit more freezing rain on the way tonight and maybe tomorrow. Driving is no longer like playing hockey but there are surprise sections of chunky ice fields in sections of roads that flooded over then froze. Very dangerous surprises, especially at night.

Oh well, if you got this far, sorry for the depressing story. If I wasn't so tired, I'd say its actually a fun adventure (until someone gets hurt.) I appreciate the place to vent. Nobody to vent to here as we are all in it. heh heh.

We are shutting the ERC down so I have more conference call to go then I am heading home to sleep. At least this next call will be more exiting.

Keep it fun,

Hang in there! Ice storms can be pretty devastating. In Montreal, we just "celebrated" the 10th anniversary of the 1998 Ice Storm. Not particularly pleasant memories...

Take care.

freezing rain here this morning

You guys take care up there, we'll be thinking of ya.

Wow, Murph. That's amazing. Take care of yourself, and thank you for telling us your story.

Hang in there, Murph. Being from Southern California, I think the only way I can replicate your situation is if I turn off all the lights in the house and then stand in front of the open freezer door.

Whoa, that sounds like some extremely nasty stuff. Take care up there Andrew and good luck.

I almost fell on my ass when leaving my house today due to the freezing rain path of death in front of my house, if it makes you feel any better.

I shoveled myself out of a foot of snow this morning. It's still a heck of a lot better than an ice storm though.

Peter, that would probably have made me feel better if there was video.

...and no *almost*.

That front step of yours is hazardous no matter what the weather, Peter. I don't know how you handle it in the ice. All y'all take care, ok?

Speaking of ice...

My family took advantage of the pleasant weather yesterday and went for a hike on a nearby mountain hill. Little did we know what would be waiting for us when we arrived. Despite the fair overnight weather at our house, there must have been quite an ice storm just 15 minutes away from our house, because the entire forest was coated with a glistening layer of ice. Even though the sky was mostly clear, it was raining in the forest due to melting ice.

About midway through the hike, the sun really came out and accelerated the that. In addition to water droplets, pieces of ice started falling. Thankfully they were no bigger than coin size pieces and didn't hurt that much when they hit a body part.

Here I am enjoying the surrealness with Gracie on my back. (You can only see her cool pink boots.) I'm sporting trekking poles, since the ground was a bit slippery and I didn't want to fall and smoosh my passenger.


Here's Steven pointing out an ice-encased young tree.


Here's another small tree not far from the bush.


And here's Steven holding up a piece of ice shaped like the leaf it was just clinging to.


The only one who didn't have a good time was our dog. She's under the impression that trees shouldn't drop things on her.

I've never seen anyone use two hiking poles before... odd.

Bren R.

Did anybody ever accuse Peter of *not* being a bit odd ... ever?

When you have two kids, you need a pair of everything so seach kid can get one when one inevitably asks if he/she can use it and the other wants one, too. (These poles are height-adjustable.)

But the dual-pole thing is pretty handy in challenging terrain. It was a bit overkill for this hike and they did quickly end up in the kids' hands. When they really came in handy was when I was hiking in Zion National Park (southwestern Utah) back in early 2003. The terrain is almost entirely sandstone, which can get slick when wet, and especially slick when icy. It the middle of a hike with some rapid elevation changes, a quick storm came through that unloaded a couple centimeters of snow pellets. My wife and I had an interesting time getting back down to the ground.

Sean you need to drive a couple hours North.
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This is the 4th snow day in the last 6 school days.

We had a thunder snow storm here last night. It was freaky watching the lightning and snow at the same time.

That looks cold, Michael! We've managed to hold onto the snow in the mountains for a good couple of weeks down here. Looks nice from far away, but not something I'd want to deal with on a daily basis.

*laughs* I wasn't calling you a two-pole wussy or anything... just never occured to me to use two poles for hiking (and not just skiing)... bro uses a collapsable fiberglas one, I've always just found a suitable tree limb and carried it through, redepositing it at the trail head for the next guy... I should actually get one, I guess - for when my luck runs out.

Where we hike it's a lot of "shield" - rock face that gets slick with moss and wet so I'd probably faceplant with both hands full.

Bren R.

Thanks for the support folks.

The good news is that nobody got seriously hurt as a result of the ice. Over 200,000 without power at it's peak. I understand there are still pockets of a few dozen customers without power here and there. That would make day number 8 for those poor souls. My power was off from Monday night to Friday afternoon. Borrowed a generator from my parents to save our pipes from freezing.

Because we live about 2 hours away we thought we could share the generator as it would be unlikely we would both be without power for long. While they were OK in the eastern end of PEI, this did teach us that that might not always be the case so I guess I know my next big purchase... HT room budget dipped into one more time.

Here is a few pics from our line crews. They are small but they were taken in low res. I want to add some more of my own tonight. I have some interesting ones of trees bent down over the road to the point they washed (scraped) your car on both sides when you drove between them.

Ice Storm Pics

Thanks again and Peter, falling down, without getting hurt, did make me feel better. Can I count on you to take a spill every time I need it?

I'm not much for snow, but sometimes it's worth it. My wife took this picture in our front yard this morning with her little Canon.

That ain't Caleeforneeyay.

Can't be.

Michael, what is the elevation where you live?

Damn, that's pretty. I'm envious.

For "Caleeforneeyay" it's been pretty cold lately. Nothing like the rest of the country, but cold for us nonetheless. I can't complain, though, it's been clear and sunny out as well.

That is a pretty picture.

Tom, we are about 4300 feet above sea level. I've spent most my life farther south in Ca. where the temps rarely dropped below 50F, I'm not a big fan of cold weather so it's hard for me to imagine how our brothers to the North can even deal with what they go through in winter.

The brain gets numb from the cold and we cease to notice winter. LOL