Snap!

I'm back after an 8-day nightmare that began with a historic natural disaster here in Arkansas. An ice storm hit us on January 26. In the early morning hours of January 27 we lost our power, and by that night, we were hearing trees throughout our woods snapping. It sounded as if someone were in the woods with shotguns. After the snap, we would hear the sickening sound of swoosh, as tops of trees and full trees, came crashing down. The result, across the entire landscape of northern Arkansas is an entire region that looks as if it has suffered tornado damage. There are trees and limbs that took utility lines, entire utility poles and in some instances, roofs down with them. Luckily, we didn't suffer any damage to our house or buildings.
After speaking to a friend yesterday and having her remind me of a weekend long ago when I had gotten food poisoning after we went to a restaurant in Kansas City, I have to say this past week ranks right up there with that experience as one of the most memorable - and not in a good way.
However, it didn't have to be.
My husband and I should have been more prepared for losing our power, and more importantly, being stranded in the woods for nearly a week before the ice melted enough to get up our mountain.
After witnessing the response of our county government, FEMA and to a lesser extent, our utility company to this disaster, I'm convinced this country is in no way prepared for a disaster of a large scale that would take away our modern conveniences, such as power.
We learned that we have to prepare ourselves and count only on ourselves, if there is another - or larger disaster.
At the height of the anxiety around here, we couldn't find any generators and grocery stores were running out of food and water.
While we had stocked up on food and we had heat with a wood burning stove (and certainly plenty of wood to heat with), we didn't have enough water, nor did we have a generator large enough to power anything larger than the refrigerator.
As we researched generators so our neighbor could bring us one today from Kansas City, we wanted to go as "green" as possible, choosing a model that would be fuel efficient. We finally chose a higher end Honda, as they are fuel efficient and should last us awhile.
Propane is the cleanest burning fuel, but cost is a consideration for us at this time.
After meeting with our utility company yesterday afternoon and being told it would be the end of next week before power was restored, we came home to a pleasant surprise of having our power on.
At least we'll be better prepared next time. I'll write a future post on disaster preparedness plans that all families - not just those in the country - should have.