It Could Have Been a Lot Worse!

Unless you live in a media vacuum, you know by now that Eastern Oklahoma was blasted pretty hard by the ice storm this week. The statistic that boggles my mind is this: two-thirds of the Tulsa metro area was without power Monday night. Fortunately for us, Sapulpa was blessed to be in the lucky third that never lost power.

Not that we haven't felt the effects, of course. The above pictures are from around our apartment complex. Nick has not had school yet this week; I am assuming it's because not enough staff can make it in. We're still waiting to hear about tomorrow, as many of the districts around us have already announced that they will be closed again. The funny thing is, we had to move south for Nick to have his first "snow days"; Pete and I can't remember school ever being closed for 3 days in a row when we were kids, either. Probably would have happened in '79 if that blizzard hadn't hit during Christmas break!

The down side for the kids is that there's no fun snow to go out and play in. Some of the older kids around us did try "sledding" down one of the hills, with the ice crunching and crackling like crazy under them. But it rained all day on Tuesday, so most of the ice was washed away by the end of the day. Driving anywhere has been a huge headache, thanks to thousands of downed trees and nonfunctioning traffic lights.

To make things even more interesting, Pete has been suffering from gallstones and was schedule to have his gallbladder removed on the 20th. His pre-op testing was cancelled on Tuesday because the hospital was running on a generator. Early this morning, he developed another severe pain attack that sent us to the emergency room at about 10:30 am. Long story short, he actually ended up having the surgery tonight, instead of next week. All I can say is, thank God it didn't happen on Monday! The hospital was a zoo and traffic was nasty, but at least everything was up and running, and we got there in time. He is recovering well and should be home tomorrow.

I am very tired. It has been a long week.