Brrrr…..

Geez Louise it is cold outside. We’ve been dealing with some very ghastly weather here in St. Louis the past couple of weeks. This week the temps are in the 20s.

A couple of weeks ago we had a really bad ice storm. We were warned by TV news reports that some people might lose power. We had an ice storm at the beginning of December and many people, including our friends Tim & Laura, lost power in that storm. Well, Beau and I figured that since we had such good luck in that last storm that we would probably be alright. We were wrong.

The ice started on Friday night. I fell asleep on the couch (typical for my Friday nights). All of a sudden, I woke up at midnight when the power suddenly went off. Beau had been watching TV and everything just went dark. We found some candles and figured we might as well go to bed.

The power briefly went back on around 3 a.m., but the next morning when I woke up there was no power. Our bed was nice and warm thanks to the down comforter my mom recently got us. We considered just staying in bed since it was so cozy there, but eventually decided we’d have to get up and see what the damage was.

We didn’t know quite what to do with ourselves or how long we should wait for the power. The thermostat read 50 degrees. It was comfortable in the house as long as we had on coats, socks and shoes. Everything seemed OK until Beau went into the basement. Our sump pump had stopped with the power, and we had water in the basement! Uh-oh.

We called my dad’s friend Pete who was able to get us my dad’s generator. We hooked that up and pumped the water out. He also gave us a kerosene heater that he said could help heat the house up. Just point it at the furnace and let the heat rise up through the furnace vents…..more on that later.

So it started to get close to 5 p.m., and still no power. We started thinking we better find other digs for the night. I’m sure we could have survived and been warm enough in the house, but it’s boring! There’s not much to do after it gets dark at 5 p.m. So we packed up and spent the night at my sister’s house.

The next morning we held our breaths as we drove back to the house. We turned the corner….and no lights on down the street. The house was still without power. Even worse, we had even more water in the basement! The generator didn’t keep up all night. Finally, around 10:30 a.m., the power came back on. We were so excited. Until…

We realized the house wasn’t getting warm even though the power had been back on form almost a half hour. Beau went down to check the furnace and realized he made a mistake. He opened the upper half of the furnace cover rather than the lower half where the vents are. So he positioned a 50,000 BTU kerosene heater blowing directly at our furnace wires. They melted.

After calling the furnace repairman, we were back in business after only about another hour. We’ve had power ever since.