A Cold Lesson in Humility

I’m back…probably not many of you noticed I was gone, but I’m back…sorta.

Last Wednesday evening/early Thursday morning, an ice storm hit the Carolinas. As usual, Greenville was one of the harder hit areas (just lucky, I guess?) of South Carolina. I’m not sure about North Carolina, but when I checked the Duke Power website today (first day I’ve had access to the internet since Wednesday!), there were still 76,000 reported customers without power in the Greenville area. The next one down the list was Spartanburg who still has 45,000 customers without power.

My neighborhood was hit pretty hard. We have power lines STILL down across one of the streets, there is a line dangling in my yard (but we think it isn’t a power line, maybe phone, doesn’t connect to my house at all), and I cleared a pile of limbs (some as big around as my arm!) out of my yard that now stands taller than I do. There was a huge limb (prolly about 2 feet in diameter) that fell on my roof, but luckily it didn’t have far to fall so it just kinda came to rest up there and didn’t puncture the roof. My landlord got up there with a chain saw and cut off what he could to lessen the weight on the roof until a tree service can get there…with all the downed trees in Greenville they are booked solid.

I can’t complain though…I still have “the country house” which has power and heat…just no TV or internet or phone. I’ve been watching a lot of movies since Wednesday of last week… A lot of the people in my neighborhood don’t have anywhere else to go, and I’ve seen more firewood stacked on porches there these past few days than I have since I started moving in! At least I have hot water and heat and lights, and all my animals are safe and warm as well. We only lost power in the “country house” for a few hours on Thursday morning.

Here is a link to some images from the ice storm courtesy of Duke Power, they don’t tell you where the pictures are, but it was pretty much the same all over I think. I don’t know when my internet will be back…the lines leading to my house look to be solid so maybe that will happen as soon as the power does. It is a little disconcerting to have to drive off the road to avoid the power line that someone has propped up on a street sign to keep it from completely blocking the road…

But on to the lesson…as I said above, I have a warm place to be. I have power. I have lights. I have my animals with me and my house in Greenville wasn’t damaged. I have it so much better than so many other people, even those just down the street from me. So for that, I am thankful…even if it means no Christmas decorations this year.