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<<<<<...WELL, HERE IT IS! Frickin ICE!!! Everywhere you look...ice.

It is the devil here in Okalhoma. A half a million homes without power and heat. One million all together businesses and homes. And that's just Oklahoma! All 77 counties are a weather disaster. The worst outage we have ever seen in our history.

Our power came on a couple of hours ago....but it will be off again, I know this, why? Because there is a tree in our backyard that is actually touching our electric line. It is hanging so full of ice. When it falls......off it goes again. Man! It was so cold in here today.

Ice is an inch thick on my car windows. The ice in the trees is that or bigger. We have tall trees. My neighbors have tall trees. When I look out in my backyard, it is just crazy.

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Our neighborhood looks like an ice tornado hit. Or like a war zone. It is simply unbelievable.

OKLAHOMA CITY - A wintry storm caked the center of the nation with a thick layer of ice Monday, blacking out more than 600,000 homes and businesses, and more icy weather was on the way. At least 17 deaths in Oklahoma and Missouri were blamed on the conditions, with 15 of them killed on slick highways.

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A state of emergency was declared for all of Oklahoma, where the sound of branches snapping under the weight of the ice echoed through Oklahoma City.

"You can hear them falling everywhere," Lonnie Compton said Monday as he shoveled ice off his driveway.

The National Weather Service posted ice and winter storm warnings Tuesday for parts of Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois. Missouri declared an emergency on Sunday and put the National Guard on alert.

Oklahoma utilities said a half-million customers were blacked out as power lines snapped under the weight of ice and falling tree branches, the biggest power outage in state history, and utilities in Missouri said more than 100,000 homes and business had no power there.

"If you do the math, probably one out of three Oklahomans has no electricity at this point," said Gil Broyles, a spokesman for Oklahoma Gas & Electric, the state's largest utility.

Roughly 11,000 customers were blacked out in southern Illinois and more than 5,000 had no electric heat or lights in Kansas, where Gov. Kathleen Sebelius declared a statewide state of emergency.

At O'Hare International Airport, about 100 flights were canceled by Monday afternoon, with delays of about 45 minutes, said Chicago Department of Aviation spokeswoman Karen Pride. No flights were canceled at Midway Airport, but a handful of flights were delayed about an hour, she said.

Ice was as much as an inch thick on tree limbs and power lines in parts of the region.

Schools across Oklahoma were closed and some hospitals were relying on backup power generators. The Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers sent 50 generators and three truckloads of bottled water from Texas to distribute to blacked-out areas of Oklahoma.

Tulsa International Airport had no power for about 10 hours and halted flight operations for the day, and most morning flights at Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City were canceled because of icy runways. Greyhound bus passengers were stranded overnight at a shelter in a church in Tulsa, and were joined by some local residents who had no heat.

Portions of Interstate 35 and Interstate 44 were shut down early Monday afternoon in Oklahoma City after ice-laden power lines collapsed and fell into the roadways.

Oklahoma utility officials said it could be a week or more before power was fully restored.

"This is a big one. We've got a massive situation here and it's probably going to be a week to 10 days before we get power on to everybody," said Ed Bettinger, a spokesman for Public Service Company. "It looks like a war zone."

The Oklahoma City suburb of Jones, a town of 2,500 people, had low water pressure because there was no electricity to run well pumps, and firefighters said an early morning fire destroyed most of the community's high school.

Since the storm began, Tulsa firefighters have responded to dozens of structural fires, most attributable to the storm, said Sheryl Lovelady, a city spokeswoman. One person was killed by smoke inhalation in a storm-related fire, she said; she did not provide details.

The icy weather stretched into the Northeast, where many schools across upstate New York were closed or started late because of icy roads.

On ice-covered Interstate 40 west of Okemah, Okla., four people died in "one huge cluster of an accident" that involved 11 vehicles, said Highway Patrol Trooper Betsey Randolph.

Ten other people died on icy Oklahoma roads, and Missouri had two storm-related deaths — one on a slippery highway and another when a tree limb fell on a 92-year-old man's head. In addition, a homeless person died of hypothermia in Oklahoma City, the state medical examiner's office said.
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If you pray====please pray with me for those families without heat. Keeping them safe from the freezing cold.
And those that do not pray....whatever you can send for those in need...will be welcomed from all.

Kat

ok it can't be THAT bad, i mean hell you only got electricity and running water last year!

I'm praying dear...it stinks even more for you guys down there...plus my sister and her family and my other sis and daughter live down there...they've been in my prayers...

I remember having driven across the nation to Wyoming in 2005 (my sec time back) and I spinned out in Nebraska on I80 having just hit an icy patch, spinning out in the median a couple of times, right next to the semi I had been passing...that freaked me out, but then that night, safe in my hotel, my car being the taurus that likes to pretend its a four wheel drive and its has good wheels built for the weather...that night I watched that they had had ice in Texas and saw a car spin out over a bridge, hitting a car and was so thankful I had not been down there at that time. Just spinning out in the median I pulled out back on the highway...took a quick break at a gas station off at a local exit...and was back on...slowly driving with others who knew what they were doing.

So, I feel you...and have prayers for you and everyone down there.

Hope it doesn't last long. Went through the same thing here in Quebec a few years ago. Everybody had to go to shelters or family/friends with wood burners.

my friend lives there too. you guys are in my thoughts and prayers!

People are dead and it can't be that bad. Don't know how much worse it could get when people start to die from freezing weather like ice / rain & Snow.

Michigan is even getting hit with this stuff just not as bad, thank god.

I think....I hope he was just kidding with his statement there.

It is soooo bad that shelters are opening everywhere that they don't exist. My sisters is still out, but she has an electric fireplace. I told her how to bypass the igniter to start it and it is toasty in her house. Lucky....She is under another electric company than us. We are OG$E and she is OEC. Ours is a bigger company. There are linemen comeing fron, I think I heard 7 different states to help us. Our people do that every year it seems. Now they are coming to help us. That is good Karma.

I am just hoding my breat about that darn line in our yard. If it hit just right, it could be dangerous....like start a fire. Many houses have burned due to the lines popping.

One school had burned completely down.

Kat

Soooo, my fingers are not spelling right. My bad.
Kat

Wow that doesn't sound too good. Best of luck and hopefully noting bad happens any time to soon to you or your home.

Thank you. Right now I have it better than many others. At least my electric comes and goes. That means I can catch a glimpse of the damage and forecasts. And, get a little heat in the meantime. Not to mention let the fridge catch up on cooling the milk and foods in there. Hopefully not spoiling them. I know it is freezing outside.....that's outside. Put it out there and all the animals would have off with it. But.....if it comes down to losing it and the stray animals...the animals have it.
I am already feeding a homeless cat outside. I take it food across the street and it watches me leave then goes and eats. I haven't seen her in a few days. I am worried for her.

Kat

Take care of you and yours Kat!!!! Sending light your way!

Hey baby girl. Thank you dear. We will. Lots of blankets. Little doggies to keep me warm when it goes out again. Candles all over the place and touch lights ready. Sighhhhh, I'm ready.

Kat

I feel for ya Kat. Several years ago I went through a blizzard and ice in Alabama of all places. No power for days. Snowed in, too. Trees down everywhere. Folks had to let the National Guard get them out of their neighborhoods to shelters like hospitals and such. Even emergency vehicles couldn't stay on the road, and there were tons of them in ditches. I toughed it out for a few days, but by 3rd day went to a shelter. Had a little baby at the time.

Wow, I guess when
they're ice down
south it really
is Armageddon.

You should come
up north for awhile.

Buy some thermal
underwear first.

Communities here are not really equipped for that kind of weather as it is so rare. I live in Texas, and when it gets severely iced, the city just about stops..... at least until it melts some.

I think you should blame Canada!!!

No no no it is the global warming. Just ask Al Gore and his friend "Nobel Award". Next to his "I invented the internet" certificate. Isreal is lighting one less candle for the holiday to save global warming. What the *&#$^%&#*#()(*&^? I have enough candles in my house to have a Chinese parade!

The electricity is still on. I am so surprised. The tree limbs are hanging so low in my backyard. I could almost reach them where I need to ...to cut them down with a chainsaw; if I had one.

Thing is; it was so odd, it was thundering and lightening all the while it was sleeting and raining ice.

It is raining right now. Cooooold...brrrrrr...shivers.
There is so much damage around me in my neighborhood. Elsewhere as well. But, you can drive through the city, and where I live in and around, and see so many differences in the disastrous effects of this strange and phenomenal storm.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Kat