Sleet, ice, snow and cold! Snap…a tree limb falls to the ground! More sleet, ice, snow and cold! Thud…a power line pole with three transformers smashes to the frozen ground! Long into the night, one could hear the crack and severing of tree limbs and trunks under the weight of the accumulating ice. Limbs and trees fell on power lines! No more electric power.
For many there was no heat. Car doors were welded shut by the 3/4” think layer of ice! One small town was completely evacuated. Businesses and churches were closed. Many people were stranded in their homes as the roads were impassable! The Governor declared our little corner of the state a disaster area. The weather here in southwest Missouri has been the topic of conversation. It was the worst ice storm in twenty years! Many people, after two weeks, have recently had their power restored. We even cancelled classes here at the Missionary Training Center for a week.
But…crisis has an “up side” too! People tend to bond together caring and spending time with each other because there was no TV, Cable, Internet, Computer Games and other electronic gismos. In our home because of the power outage there were just old fashion “board games”, hide and seek in the dark and that lost art of conversing with each other around candles or kerosene lanterns. When the power returned and life got back to “normal”, it wasn’t long before my youngest daughter of nine said, “I wish the power would go off again because we spent more time together as a family when we didn’t have it.” Keep the candles handy! I’m thinking of throwing the main power switch off at my house at least one weekend a month!
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