We’ve been watching this storm system move our way all week – and we’ve been getting ready for it.
Yesterday, the weather forecast was that we could get as a .75 inch coating of ice on trees and power lines – enough ice to be disastrous.
Fortunately, though, the ice here didn’t get more than a quarter of an inch. Fortunately, the freezing rain changed to sleet and, later, snow.
It was enough, though, that we didn’t venture out all day – no need. We’ve got about 4 inches of snow on top of the ice.
We were ready, though, just in case.
One of the first things I did was to move the motorhome between the house and the shop. The area where it is normally parked is next to and under several large pines. After our close call last year, when an ice storm dropped branches, power lines and even whole trees not too far north of us, we decided that we would move it to a safer location if another ice storm was forecast for our area.
We also made sure we had enough groceries, which we did.
Just in case we lost power like we did last year, I had topped off the fuel tank in the motorhome. I also moved our other smaller generator up to the front porch and made sure I found the cords for running power to the refrigerator, fireplace blower, computers and TV.
Despite the winter weather we’ve had this year, we haven’t lost power this season – yet!
Gold mantled ground squirrel on Aluvial Fan Nature Trail
Karen and Mike at Hidden Valley
Controlled burn in the park
Elk in meadow (click for larger panorama view)
A smoky sunset
Rocky Mountain National Park — September 1, 2009
We decided to limit our first full day to lower elevations rather than heading directly to Trail Ridge Road, which runs up over 12,000 feet above sea level. We started out by going to the visitor centers on the park’s east side.
We got out of the camper fairly early and made it to the Fall River Visitor Center before it opened and saw more elk on the short drive over.
The Fall River Visitor Center is just outside the Fall River entrance station. We hadn’t planned to spend any time in Estes Park or do any shopping until later in the week, but, since the visitor center wasn’t open yet, we decided to check out an adjacent gift store.
The air in the area was still very smoky. I asked the rangers at the visitor center information counter about it and wasn’t terribly surprised when they told me that it was from the fires in California.
After leaving the Fall River Visitor Center we drove through Estes Park to the Beaver Meadows Visitor Center. It really isn’t much, as visitor centers go, even though it is at the entrance to the park that has the highest traffic. The park headquarters is also located at Beaver Meadows.
The next visitor center that we stopped at was at Moraine Meadows, in the same area as the campground. As we were going to an exhibit area on the upper floor, one of the volunteer nature interpreters was announcing a guided walk on the nature trail at the center. It was interesting and we learned a few things.
For example, have you ever got a good whiff of a Ponderosa Pine? Get up close to one and take a smell in one of the cracks in the tree’s bark. I was surprised to find that it a very pleasant odor, reminiscent of vanilla.
Our next stop was the Alluvial Fan.
In July, 1982, the old Lawn Lake dam failed and sent a torrent of water down Roaring River to Fall River. Along the way, it swept anything in it’s path away, including trees and huge rocks and boulders. It left behind an alluvial fan where the steep river mountain valley met the meadow of Horseshoe Park. Several people died and Estes Park streets were flooded with 6 feet of water.
We’ve visited the Alluvial Fan Nature Trail several times over the years and it’s interesting to see how nature is healing, albeit slowly, the scars of a man-made disaster.
Other places we visited included Beaver Ponds boardwalk, where a short boardwalk takes the visitor into meadows that are slowly being formed as silt is deposited in old beaver ponds, and Hidden Valley, which is one of several commercial ventures that have been returned to a natural state.
For many years, Hidden Valley was a ski area. The ski lift was closed in 1992 and removed within 10 years. Restoration of the area to near natural condition continues.
In the evening, we walked from the campground down to the meadow to see if we could see any elk. There was a large number, spread out over the meadow in the area just below the campground.
The photo of an emergency surface exercise of the USS Francis Scott Key was taken from the USS Casimir Pulaski at some point after I served on the Pulaski.
While I was on the Pulaski, in late 1974 or early 1975, we performed an emergency surface exercise. I was fortunate enough to be on one of the controls, the fairwater planes.
For some reason, we had more machinest mates than needed for the watchbill. When divisions on board ship had a surplus of junior enlisted sailors, often they would be assigned to the mess decks. However, because I was in the nuclear power program, I was a petty officer before I reported to the boat and petty officers are NOT generally assigned food services duty. Instead, I qualified and stood watch as helmsman, planesman, and, when we were on the surface, lookout.
When we did the emergency surface, I remember being told to keep the angle of the ship from exceeding a certain value. I don’t remember the number, but I do remember, as the angle started rising, pushing forward on the yoke as far as possible and the angle just kept getting steeper. We were moving forward at “ahead full,” if I remember right, and were somewhere between 400 to 700 feet deep when the forward ballast tanks were blown to establish the upward angle. Not too long after that, the rest of the ballast tanks were blown. I don’t remember watching the depth indication, but it would have been changing faster than I had ever seen it change. There was likely a shuddering of the hull as it moved through the water and started to rise, as well as the souds of the water being blown from the tanks with air. Those who were standing would appear to be leaning forward when, in reality, they would be standing straight up as the deck took a steeper and steeper angle. I was seated, looking forward, so really didn’t see any of the crew who were standing.
When the boat broached the surface, it felt a bit like an amusement ride where you’ve been going up and up and up and then all of a sudden levels and drops. After emergency surfacing , the submarine came further out of the water than it would on a normal surface and, because of that, actually went below the surface until its positive buoyancy brought it back up.
Quite a memorable experience.
The video below shows another submarine doing an emergency surface.
An emergency surface exercise is supposed to be a controlled training evolution. As an exercise, it should never be done when there is the slightest possibility of other ships in the immediate area.
On February 9, 2001, the American submarine USS Greeneville (SSN-772) accidentally struck and sank a Japanese high-school fisheries training ship, Ehime-Maru, killing nine of the 35 Japanese aboard, including four students, 10 miles off the coast of O’ahu. The collision occurred while members of the public were on board the submarine observing an emergency surface drill.
A naval inquiry found that the accident was the result of poorly executed sonar sweeps, an ineffective periscope search by the submarine’s captain, Commander Scott Waddle, bad communication among the crew and distractions caused by the presence of the 16 civilian guests aboard the submarine.
– Wikipedia
Needless to say, this was a horrifying incident for anyone who has served on submarines. It never should have happened.
For the last night of our May 2009 trip, we stopped in northeast Arkansas at Crowley’s Ridge State Park.
Crowley’s Ridge rises 100 to 200 feet above the river plains of eastern Arkansas. A narrow arc of rolling hills, it extends from Cape Girardeau, Missouri, down to the Mississippi River in southeast Arkansas at Helena.
The ridge was named for a War of 1812 soldier, Benjamin F. Crowley, whose war land grant was the first settlement in the area.
The park is located near Paragould in Green County at Benjamin Crowley’s original homesite and is one of the original six Arkansas state parks. Construction by the Civilian Conservation Corps began in 1933.
While our stay was just for one night, we did have the opportunity for a couple of good walks and a few pictures in the evening and the next morning before we left. However, As a result of heavy rain, our evening plans for cooking outside didn’t pan out.
In February 2009, Crowley’s Ridge, along with a wide section of Arkansas, Missouri, and Kentucky, experienced a damaging ice storm. Evidence of the storm can still be seen in the ragged appearance from broken and missing branches of many trees in the park and along hundreds of miles of the route we traveled on May 26 and 27.
This firewood is all from last week's storm. There's still a little bit to be cut up yet.
One of many lillies in our yard.
Another lilly picture.
This rose plant has been in our yard "forever"
This hole in the ground is where the bottom of a broken section of pine trunk hit. It had broken off about 25 - 30 feet in the air and, based on annual rings, was 33 years old at the location where the trunk broke during last week's storm.
All that's left to clean up of the broken section of pine that broke.
First of all, we’re pretty much back to normal here. We got power back night before last, with it being off somewhere over 30 hours. We lost water pressure some time on Saturday afternoon when we went to Little Rock. Yesterday evening, we started getting water back after 8 PM — just a trickle at first as the whole system in our area had to fill and pressurize.
Even though we live in the country, we are on a public water supply system. The system serves parts of three counties. We signed up for it when it first went in back in the 80s. We had been having problems with our well pump and the water had a lot of minerals, including iron which tended to stain things. When we went on public water, we had talked about installing a new pump to make the well available as a backup. However, I had already pulled the pump once and replaced it and every time I’ve thought about doing it again, I soon forgot about it. Since we’ve only lost water pressure once in over 20 years, it’s not been an issue.
Earlier, we discovered another problem caused by the storm. The local television stations are coming in fine over the satellite receiver. However, virtually nothing else is. I did a little trouble shooting and it looks like the dish must have moved a little bit. I’m planning to go up on the roof tomorrow morning before it gets too hot and “re-point” the dish. While I’m at it, I’ll try to get a really strong signal from both of the satellites we receive programming on. After I moved the dish up to the roof last year, the receiver seemed to be more susceptible to the signal getting dropped during storms than it used to be.
Yesterday, before we got water back, we drove into town to go to the gym to get showers after spending part of the day cutting wood and moving downed branches. We took a side trip on the way to town to take a look at some of the damage. Karen took some pictures on the way in and, then again, on the way home.
Not knowing that we would be getting water back, while we were in town we bought some more bottled water. It will be needed, though, even with water pressure back. Until the water company gets satisfactory results from samples sent to the state lab in Little Rock, people who lost water pressure are under a “boil water” order for any water used for drinking or cooking.
We stayed home today and worked on cutting and clearing. We’ll probably do the same tomorrow.
Pictures:
There really is a house behind and under this tree (not ours.)
A lot of trees went down across roads. In most instances, the trees were cleared off the roads by the public.
We were getting ready to start setting up the camper for sleeping in it tonight.
While I moved our smaller generator so it wouldn’t be running right outside the motorhome, Karen went in the house for something.
As soon as she went in, she noticed that something “didn’t look right.” Then she realized the dining area light was on and wondered how I had managed to get power from the generator to that ceiling light. It didn’t take her much longer to realize that we had power back.
Everything looks better now since we can have our normal number of lights on. We don’t generally have that many on, but we only had a couple on while we were using the generator. It wasn’t a power concern — I was just limiting the hassle of running more power cords.
Power has been back on for a little over an hour. With as much damage as we saw around the area, it wouldn’t surprise me if we lost power again, temporarily, so we’ve left the tangle of power cords running through the house. That way, if we do lose power the cords will already be laid out to the essential things, like the refrigerator — and our computers, the modem and the wireless router.
We still don’t have water.
Hopefully, we will have water pressure by the time we get done with working on cleaning things up tomorrow. If not, we’ll probably stop by 3 so we can run into town to use the showers at the gym.
Unfortunately, the water tank in the camper is almost empty.
We went to Little Rock today, as planned, despite the storm debris that needs to be picked up in the yard — and the tree and branches that need to be cut up.
We didn’t stay long — just did a little shopping and visited with our daughter and son-in-law before heading home.
Not long after we got home we discovered that we didn’t have any water pressure.
No power and, now, no water.
Great.
So…, we headed back into town to buy some water for drinking, flushing, and, cooking. I’m sure there’ll be a boil water order to use water out of the tap until testing shows the water is safe to drink. At 72¢ a gallon, though, it’s worth it not to have to deal with having to boiling water.
Then we went for pizza.
We’ll be sleeping in the camper tonight — sure is nice to have a generator and a cool place to sleep as the weather has turned warm and humid.
The good news — there are lots of Entergy (local electric power company — and my former employer) crews in the area working on the power problem
The park is located near Paragould in Green County at Benjamin Crowley’s original homesite and is one of the original six Arkansas state parks. Construction by the Civilian Conservation Corps began in 1933.
