Wednesday, February 14, 2007

storm predictions (update)

Yesterday I made some storm predictions... so far, here are the results:

My car will freeze shut and to the ground
Kinda. Well, the car froze shut, but with a big stick I was able to crack a door open and get into the car. The hood and trunk were sealed shut with a think coating of snow/sleet/ice mix (see photo). After chipping away half an inch of corrugated ice, the sun and my defroster melted the rest covering the windows. I still can't use my rear view mirrors, and it is incredibly tricky to get my trunk open (and it won't open all the way). To put gas in the car, I had to chip at the edges with a key, then pry it open with a metal keychain. The car also did not stick to the ground -- at least not after I picked away most of the ice that was attached to the tires. After a loud snapping noise, my car pulled out of its icy mount.

Trees will fall over (they are currently caked with snow/sleet/ice)
Wrong. I did not witness any fallen trees. I saw some branches on the ground today, and the trees were VERY droopy, but I saw no downed trees.

Power lines will sag and some older poles will droop or fall causing outages
Right. On the news tonight, they were reporting that 47 people in the Bloomington area were still without power due to downed lines, and report that many lost power earlier. I didn't see the effects IN town, but I'm sure some of the older poles toppled out of town due to the heavy layer of ice on everything.

When we dip below freezing tonight, the frequency of car accidents will skyrocket (there are too many people here in town who don't know when to avoid driving).
Probably. I didn't see any accidents in town, but I heard emergency sirens every ten minutes or so until I fell asleep. In the morning I saw a med-evac helicopter.

The story is completely different in Lafayette, where Purdue has canceled school for the second day in a row, and major intersections now look narrow due to the five to ten foot snow piles all over the place. The news said they got 16 inches of snow in the last day and a half! Driving through Lafayette, I wouldn't be surprised if it were more. It's still a big mess! I guess there's nowhere to put all that snow...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, we had to dig out but it wasn't quite as rough... When I popped the trunk, there was 2 inches of ice across the entire back... which came off in one gigantic sheet.

The only thing that saved me is that I put our wipers up before the bulk of the storm hit. I still had to unbury the rest of the windshield, but atleast I knew how far to go. ;)

Unknown said...

All I can say is "YAY FOR GARAGES!!"