Hobbit
01-30-2009, 01:09 PM
After being out of power since Tuesday, my house has been lifted from the bitter haze of The Icepocalypse. The damage is severe beyond belief. If you have not witnessed it yourself, there is no describing it. People around town listened to trees breaking all day Tuesday, as The Icepocalypse was hitting Fayetteville full force. That's for pussies. We here next to campus spent all day listening to transformers explode...21 of them. This is different from a transformer blowing. The two plates of the transformer are separated by a weak explosive. When the transformer overloads, the stuff cooks off, blowing the plates apart and shutting down the transformer. Easy fix, just replace the junk and move the plates back together. However, transformers are oil cooled. When the plates are frozen together and the pyrotechnics can't fix the thing, the oil coolant eventually cooks off. The effect is about like a few sticks of dynamite, only with more sparks and fire. The one that took out power to half the house (yes, only half the house was out of power for about 4-5 hours before the other half went out) woke everybody up in a one block radius. The flash made us think there was a lightning storm and lit up the sky. The campus itself only maintained power through its own generators and told non-essential personnel to stay the **** at home.
Meanwhile, on campus, the arboretum was destroyed. On the front lawn of Old Main, one tree of every species that naturally occurs in Arkansas grows there...or did. The Icepocalypse will likely claim over half of them before it's over, as many of the trees were reduced to free standing piles of debris with a pole in the middle. The many trees we greeted every day on the way to class, the magnolia next to Memorial Hall, the willow next to the promenade, for example, are now flattened. Over half of the many trees that greeted fans driving down Razorback road past the stadium, Bud Walton, the HPER, and the track have simply shattered at the trunk just below the lowest branch. The sidewalks were impassable due to debris, and new paths had to be cut between areas covered in branches and areas that looked like they soon would be. Even as The Icepocalypse began to release its icy grip from our town, trees that were held together simply by the ice began collapsing and icicle from traffic lights and power lines continued to do their damage. One by one, campus was abandoned for people to go home or to the houses of old friends who had power. Not I. I maintained vigil, warming myself by the fireplace and cooking on the stove (or using the campus cafeterias, which were still open), for my house, the Chi Alpha House, has always been a place of refuge, and were I to abandon it, there would hardly be a soul left. Only 6 remained of the original 25 when The Icepocalypse lifted, coming together to maintain sanity and to share resources.
So here I sit, in my Courtney Fortsin hair (those of you who watched us play Alabama on ESPN last night know what I'm talking about), reflecting upon the past days, listening to massive sheets of ice slide off the roof, and pondering the fact that I am currently sitting in a federal disaster area (I must give credit where credit is due, and thank you Obama for sending us help) and thanking the crew from Shreveport that restored power to our house. Yes, I did indeed survive The Icepocalypse, and I think I'm going to have some t-shirts made for us, the war zone having passed and life resuming as normal.
P.S. Down the street, one of my friends was setting out to come up here (everything they had was electric, and we had heat and a stove). He was on the phone while his wife was taking pictures. Once the pictures were concluded, a door flew open four doors down from their apartment. It was Crazy Old Guy, you know, the 50 year old guy who sounds like he's been in a hermit shack for 45 of those years. He flung open his door, stared out into the white devastation of The Icepocalypse, lifted his voice to the sky, and cried out, "I voted for you, Obama! WHERE'S MY POWER?! I want power!"
P.P.S. I, obviously, am fine. My car is undamaged. The house is warming back up. We're good.
Meanwhile, on campus, the arboretum was destroyed. On the front lawn of Old Main, one tree of every species that naturally occurs in Arkansas grows there...or did. The Icepocalypse will likely claim over half of them before it's over, as many of the trees were reduced to free standing piles of debris with a pole in the middle. The many trees we greeted every day on the way to class, the magnolia next to Memorial Hall, the willow next to the promenade, for example, are now flattened. Over half of the many trees that greeted fans driving down Razorback road past the stadium, Bud Walton, the HPER, and the track have simply shattered at the trunk just below the lowest branch. The sidewalks were impassable due to debris, and new paths had to be cut between areas covered in branches and areas that looked like they soon would be. Even as The Icepocalypse began to release its icy grip from our town, trees that were held together simply by the ice began collapsing and icicle from traffic lights and power lines continued to do their damage. One by one, campus was abandoned for people to go home or to the houses of old friends who had power. Not I. I maintained vigil, warming myself by the fireplace and cooking on the stove (or using the campus cafeterias, which were still open), for my house, the Chi Alpha House, has always been a place of refuge, and were I to abandon it, there would hardly be a soul left. Only 6 remained of the original 25 when The Icepocalypse lifted, coming together to maintain sanity and to share resources.
So here I sit, in my Courtney Fortsin hair (those of you who watched us play Alabama on ESPN last night know what I'm talking about), reflecting upon the past days, listening to massive sheets of ice slide off the roof, and pondering the fact that I am currently sitting in a federal disaster area (I must give credit where credit is due, and thank you Obama for sending us help) and thanking the crew from Shreveport that restored power to our house. Yes, I did indeed survive The Icepocalypse, and I think I'm going to have some t-shirts made for us, the war zone having passed and life resuming as normal.
P.S. Down the street, one of my friends was setting out to come up here (everything they had was electric, and we had heat and a stove). He was on the phone while his wife was taking pictures. Once the pictures were concluded, a door flew open four doors down from their apartment. It was Crazy Old Guy, you know, the 50 year old guy who sounds like he's been in a hermit shack for 45 of those years. He flung open his door, stared out into the white devastation of The Icepocalypse, lifted his voice to the sky, and cried out, "I voted for you, Obama! WHERE'S MY POWER?! I want power!"
P.P.S. I, obviously, am fine. My car is undamaged. The house is warming back up. We're good.