Southern Ice Storm Renders Many Powerless

It seems our winter has come a lot sooner to North Carolina then it normally does. In my part of the state if the snow comes from the mountains we are fine, but if it comes from the south we are in trouble. I am of the opinion that most of us will be very wary of this weather, well just until spring comes anyway.

I watched a tv channel from Greenville, South Carolina earlier today and saw that over 200,000 were without power in the upstate of SC including the three newscasters doing the show. Obviously I am not powerless though. I keep hearing it will take days to get the power fully restored. To clean up all the debris will take weeks. I do think it's amusing that all of the information about going online to see who gets power next etc. etc. requires power and/or online services. The winter probably won't seem that bad until I get my next heating bill.

Exactly.

That is alot of customers! At least I'm not one of them!

My power only went off for like a second on the first day but then it immediately came back on. We have asthma in here so we would be screwed without any heat.(no carosene heaters)

I drove around Greenville at night this weekend and there were many outlying areas pitch dark which are usually well lit with stop lights, stores, etc. etc.. In those areas intersections have no traffic or stop lights working, street lights are out along with all the power in whole areas. Trees are down all over the place but the main roads that I was driving on were clear. You just had to be alert that you didn't get too close to the side because the branches and trees were cut close to the gutter. They weren't completely off the road. I remember hearing that about 50 percent of all the roads around the Greenville Spartanburg area of South Carolina had impassable roads because of all the trees that fell down along with large branches. Driving around at night is more dangerous than I realized. It's pitch black in areas and you can drive straight through an intersection and not even realize it until you're in it already. If you didn't see the headlights of a car coming from the other direction, it wouldn't be good.

Some people reading this might wonder why the police aren't directing traffic at the busy intersections if the traffic lights are out. Well so much power is still out or was last night, that there is just too much to handle I believe. I heard you should treat a traffic light intersection as a 4 way stop. If you see cars stopped you better stop as well because someone may come driving through from the other direction. It's like the western carolinas got hit by a hurricane with so much power out and trees down all over the place. I read one power company said it was the worst ice storm ever as far as they are concerned. I thought the one in 2002 was a lot worse at least where I live. Be alert and careful if you attempt to drive through an area hit by ice even a few days afterwards.

[edit on 18-12-2005 by orionthehunter]

[edit on 18-12-2005 by orionthehunter]

Here's a current news update I just saw on TV a few minutes this Sunday night. Duke Power is reporting about 163,000 people without power in South Carolina according to one local station. I believe Duke Power is reporting over 49,000 without power in NC. I know there are other power companies but I am not familiar with the common power companies in NC. The message at the bottom of the screen also says to treat intersections without working traffic lights as a four way stop. If you're in the area you need to be careful because some people may not see the intersection in the dark. If other cars are stopped, it's a good sign they are at an intersection and someone may be about to drive through from a different direction you can't see. I'm just thinking about those grocery stores and convenience stores/gas stations without power and all those people trying to get ready for Christmas just lost all their frozen food. It really is like a hurricane when that many lose power for days and trees go down making travel hazardous.