Pictures from outdoor exercise.
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I woke up to frozen things. The freezing rain started overnight after it sleeted for a while. There may or may not have been snow. I mucked out the bird bath and put warm water in. I repeated that a few times during the day. I put the hummingbird feeder out at first light, and I kept swapping it out with another one as it started to freeze up. Poor little critters need the energy right now, especially with the long nights. I need to bring in the one that's out there now. I also had to get the ice out of the seed feeding station and add a little seed at a time and try to keep it ice free. The birds seemed quite happy to have access to food and water. I wonder how hard the suet gets when it's 20 or below.
This afternoon it got up to maybe 22 degrees. The freezing rain had paused, so I bundled up and went for a walk. Being bundled up and moving - I was pretty warm, except my face since I have been shaving this winter.
I got to see silly people doing silly things with their cars. I think some people are dumber than a box-o-rocks. A guy in a Jeep who isn't from my neighborhood (small neighborhood - I recognize all the cars) came by faster than appropriate, but whatever. The driver stopped and got out... in flip flops... and cleared ice off his windshield that a wise person might have removed before driving. Of he went again, couldn't decide to turn right or left, changed the signal a few times, then turned on the collector street, went a block, and pulled over again to clean off more ice. Other folks seemed to be doing the same thing. Down in the mostly empty parking lot in the park by the river, college kids in fairly fancy cars that I can only presume were bought for them were doing doughnuts. One clearly had gone through some deeper slush and partially tore off a fairing. Whatever.
It was a nice walk. I went down the river path because I figured it wouldn't be muddy. It wasn't. There was a layer of frozen on top except for some of the deepest mud puddles that had not frozen completely. On the walk down to the park and on the walk back, because there was both sleet AND freezing rain, there was a little bit of grip on the ice. It was still slick. I walked down past the disc golf course and actually saw one threesome playing. Maybe I should go play a round tomorrow. That might be fun. It's forecast to be a little warmer tomorrow - 26 degrees. I walked back past the 12th hole and along the bark path. Only one tree was down across the path. When I left the park, I walked through the cemetery, then out to the highway to see what local businesses were open and which were closed. I took a little back pathway home that normally isn't passable this time of year because of high water. There was some high water, but I was in Muck boots, and it wasn't THAT high. There was one other tree down that I had to climb around. There's a lot of poison oak down there, but this time of year it doesn't pump out much urushiol, and all the stems were covered with a layer of ice, so I wasn't too worried. Back across the field near my house, and back home for about 4.5 miles total.
About halfway, the freezing rain started again Since it was cold, I didn't wear a waterproof shell outside of my thermal layers. Because the outside of my coat was still below freezing, I was coated in a layer of rime when I got home. I wonder where I'll walk tomorrow. There's another route I might take, or I might go back. It would be beautiful to be paddling, but I don't think I'll do that.
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Currently 23F/-5C in our region. Cold enough to wear a jacket for a change. The forecast is no longer calling for snow and/or freezing rain. I'm okay with that. We're still set to warm up to 68F on Thursday.1
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It's 7 F (about -14 C) here at almost 3PM today, sunny. Tomorrow's high is forecast for 11 F (-12 C), otherwise we're in single digits F through Tuesday, after which night temps stay single digits (some with a minus sign), and days range up into the high teens and low 20s (-8 C and up a bit) through next weekend. This is finally more like our usual early January, after a very unusually warm late December (50s F, over 10 C, often.)
We didn't get the predicted max 5 inches of snow Friday night, rather more like 3. So my "outdoor exercise" on Saturday was an hour and three-quarters of . . . guess what? (Hint: Shovels were involved.) I didn't do the whole drive (photo) because after I had a good chunk done, my sweet 80 y/o neighbor Bob came home, saw me shoveling away, and brought his mini-tractor-mounted snow blower over and did a good bit.
I decided to shovel yesterday when it was "warm" (about 24F, -4 C), especially the big plow-created berm at the end of my driveway, even though the forecast suggested we could get up to 5" more snow late Saturday. (We didn't; it looks more like another 2-3"). I can easily drive over 5" of snow, but the much bigger heap of wet, icy mess the road plow throws up can be an obstacle, especially wrt staying out of the ditch when driving back into my driveway. I do shovel the road-shoulder for maybe 15 feet "upstream" of my driveway, which helps avoid the plow-berm regenerating for a while.
I'm planning to stay in for a few days, though, unless I find a good reason to leave.
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I don't mind snow... but I know my wife just hates it... so I'm in Texas. It is what it is...2
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Been single digits F here, mostly negative (-20 to -15 C), in SW MO USA for the last 48 hours or so. Today the high just breaks double digits (10 F, -12C). We won’t rise above freezing until Wednesday.
We’ve collected only a couple of inches of snow as the wind is up in the double digits (mph), sometimes hitting up in the 20s (32 kph) making for dangerous windchills.
My wife and I, with our two indoor cats and two outdoor dogs, have been staying warm in the living room, breaking outside only to put out bird seed and let the dogs run. 10-15 minutes at a time, tops.3 -
21F/-6C in the Hill Country of Texas... a small skiff of snow overnight... My wife decided to risk going to work. The roads appear clear but our house is sheltered so there might be more snow elsewhere.1
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I had another walk on the ice today. Back down to the park by the river. I couldn't take the river path even if I wanted to. The river has come up, and it's into the parking lot and covering the entrance to the river path.
There was a big limb down from a large cottonwood that is mostly blocking the road into the park. Maybe 20" diameter?
It was below freezing, but the sun was out. It was beating on my black coat, so I stayed warm. Well, that and the warm layers underneath. I walked out along the sports fields instead of through the forest because I wanted to be in the SUN. We just don't see it that often in the winter around here. Unfortunately, even though the temperature was below freezing, that awesome solar power's energy melted a micro layer of liquid water on top of the otherwise concrete-hard ice. It was so slick. I ducked into the restoration forest to get into the shade where it "wasn't so hot" and mostly where the path wasn't so slick.
As I got close to the southernmost part of my walk (I could have walked farther, but there's a steep hill on the path just past there, and I didn't want to risk that), I came upon yet another tree coated with ice. This Ponderosa Pine had the sun behind it, and it was gorgeous.
Looking out to the older soccer fields, another large tree was shimmering in a coating of rime.
When I got home, I went out back to see what things looked like. My perennials will be safe from the very cold weather because they have an insulating layer of ice on them. This is what my blueberry bushes look like:
Another round of freezing rain is expected tomorrow. We'll probably lose more limbs and trees. Some friends have been without electricity for about 30 hours. I think the crew was working to get it back as it grew dark. Good thing because it's going to be 13 degrees F tonight. Maybe warmer. At least they have a wood stove, but I fear for their well. The county sent out an emergency message asking people to be safe and stay inside if they can. The EMS and the hospital are overwhelmed with crashes and slip/fall injuries. I tuned in to a website that broadcasts the radio traffic for public safety and have been listening to slip/fall calls, to people stuck, and other stuff. A truck slid off the road into a water body. The passenger wheels were underwater up to the top of the wheel wells. A car slid into a bridge on a state highway and is blocking both lanes. It's a long drive for the deputies and tow trucks, but they at least got it shoved off the highway. Another vehicle, a van towing a box trailer, got stuck because they couldn't make it up to the top of the hill at one of the passes. Probably good because they might have slid off in the curves on the east side of the pass. The van had nine passengers. Oh it just keeps coming.
I reheated some split pea and barley soup. Warm soup was fantastic along with a delicious salad. Maybe a cup of tea is in order, then either work on my at-home work for a big first aid class I'm taking in a couple weeks or escape into a novel a friend wrote that I've been enjoying.
How has YOUR day been?
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I forgot to mention: That car in the first picture? It's been there a couple days. The driver had been doing doughnuts down in the flat part of the parking area on Saturday. They were there when I got there to start my walk that day, and 90 minutes later were still there rippin' it up. Nice BMW. They tore off some of the front fairing smashing through the slush. It was pretty goofy but whatever.
Apparently the driver couldn't make it back up the hill. Guess what ya dummy - it's slick out. The driver could have backed up and parked... in the parking area. Or at least pulled all the way over to the curb.... Nope. Just walk away and leave the vehicle partially blocking the road.
I was a little surprised that some other vehicle hadn't hit it yet. It will still be there tomorrow, and it will get buried deeper in ice. I wish someone would give it a ticket or tow it out of the way, maybe back down to the parking area. Or both. Or put a boot on it. It won't happen, and that's OK. The people doing emergency response have their hands full with other people doing dumb things and actually getting injured or putting their vehicles into the ditch, a river, or stuck in a way that totally blocks traffic.
You'd think common sense might be more common. Nope.1 -
Common sense is like underarm deodorant; those who need it most rarely indulge and there's no polite way to point it out to them.
Freezing rain is pretty to look at but can do so much damage. Years ago, Ontario (where I used to live) had a number of high power towers collapse under the weight of ice (on the lines and the towers themselves) from multiple coats of freezing rain. What a mess to clean up and power outages until they got it sorted.1 -
I usually don't keep my house all that warm. It's warm enough for wintertime - 66 degrees F (about 19C). I am contemplating cranking it up when the freezing rain starts just to see if I can get all the contents and surfaces warmer in case we start to get major power outages, and I kind of think we will.1
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My wife likes to keep the house at 66f... That works for me too...
I found a local firewood supplier and once I get some wood, I'll use the fireplace for a bit of heat. There's something charming about having the fireplace cooking along...1 -
I've done the "heat the house" thing when power outages were a potential, too. Even for the snow forecast over the weekend (that turned out to be a non-event), I made sure to charge up power bank, LuminAid light/charger, etc.
My fireplace (with insert) has been useful in long-past multi-day power outages, but right now I need my chimney relined
, so I'm not using it for safety reasons. It's enough to keep the living room livably warm when it's in the teens outdoors, maybe lower, and keep the pipes from freezing throughout. The house, though a 1950s model, had insulation blown in at some past point, is pretty well insulated. 0 -
The forecast update said the nasty weather would be delayed. It was still sunny. I knew it was very slick out, and I knew that conditions would be much worse once the next round of freezing rain arrived. This time I put on an outer GoreTex layer in case I didn't get home before it started. One with a hood. I was glad about that when I was at the southernmost part of my walk. The gray clouds had been closing in, and off in the distance I could see precipitation falling.
It was really REALLY slick anywhere that the sun hit yesterday. Pictures don't really show it. It was essentially the same kind of ice as you'd see on a hockey rink, except it had a little texture. If a Zamboni drove by, you could play on it. A friend said she was going to try out her ice skates today. This is as good as I can show. It's a gravel road through the park. It looks like a frozen lake surface or something, but it's not. It's a road.
On the way down the street, I saw two folks on XC skis. I felt really bad for the skis. I hope they were old. This ice surely would damage the bases. When I got almost to the entrance to the southernmost part of the park, I made a choice to attempt to walk down some steps that lead down to the 15th hole of the disc golf course rather than attempt to walk down the road. The road has a hill, and I knew it would be slick. I hoped that my trekking poles would help me safely descend the big steps. Bonus was that since that area had stayed in the shade, it wasn't quite as slick. I still went very very slow and used the trekking poles to brace myself to take two or three steps on each of the levels. At the bottom I had to climb over/through a down tree blocking the bridge across the small stream at the bottom.
I had seen the hydrograph, and the river was dropping. I decided to take the river path back as far as I could. I knew if I ran into water, I could turn around and take one of several trails that go up top to some other parts of the trail system. I climbed under some other down trees carefully. I first made sure they were stable where they were hanging so they didn't land on me. They must have fallen yesterday because they had icicles hanging on them that were oriented sideways.
I did eventually get to a place that was inundated. Time to turn around and slowly head back south and then up to the "Bark Path" on the east side of the sports fields.
Once back up to the bark path, I slowly worked my way back around and back up to my house. I came inside, took off my layers, started heating some leftovers for lunch, and when I went to swap out the hummingbird feeders, I noticed that the freezing rain had just started. My timing was excellent.
While my beans are heating and the brown jasmine rice is cooking, I'm enjoying a decaf with some unsweetened cocoa powder mixed in. Life is good.2 -
I've not tried adding unsweetened cocoa into my coffee... hmmm....
My bride likes flavoured coffees; I'm more inclined to a standard brew.0 -
I usually just have black coffee. I use a pour-over filter - one cup at a time. I have recently started weighing my beans before grinding. I grind enough for two cups since that's what I usually drink. I found the recommendation for 55 grams per liter is really good. That means 24 or 25 grams for my mug that's just short of 16 ounces.
Chocolate was a drink for ages and ages before Spanish explorers "discovered" it. A Swiss chemist figured out how to make cocoa powder, and all it contains is the dried solids from cacao. It's a bit bitter. So is the coffee. First time I tried it, there were some issues getting it dissolved. I got that figured out:
Pre-heat mug with a tiny bit of boiling water - discard. Put a spoon of cocoa powder in the mug (20 calories per tablespoon), and add a tiny bit of boiling water. Mix vigorously; it will mostly dissolve. Then make coffee on top. Keep the spoon handy and give it a stir from time to time when drinking or else the last few sips will have some chocolate sludge on the bottom. Tasty, yeah, but better to have it a little at a time with each sip.
If you want "candy coffee," you can add sweetener. I am a crotchety Gus, so I just enjoy the bitterness 1 -
The candy coffee thing is why I'm not a huge fan of the flavoured coffee... plus there's a kind of chemical aftertaste which bothers me.
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The candy coffee thing is why I'm not a huge fan of the flavoured coffee... plus there's a kind of chemical aftertaste which bothers me.
It doesn't have to be sweet even if you put a small amount of brown sugar in. If not - it's just coffee and some bitter chocolate flavor. No chemical aftertaste, and I'm pretty much a coffee snob. I weigh my beans for goodness sake!0 -
I did another 5.05 mile walk today on a slightly different route. It was much warmer. There was precipitation, and it was not frozen as it was falling.
I walked down the river path. There was one small area of inundation. I had neoprene knee boots, so no problem. It was not slick AT ALL. The only pictures I got were an area that had been inundated, and that lifted up the ice and/or allowed more ice to form on top. The ice left was well over a half inch thick. It had stuck to trees and such, so as the river dropped, it left ice sheets weirdly hung in mid-air.
There were LOTS of trees down.
I decided to take a diversion so I could avoid some areas where I'd have had even more to climb over. It was super foggy from the warmer air and the ice still on the ground, and as I mentioned, it was RAINING. I wore a waterproof-breathable coat with a hood and waterproof-breathable pants. Good thing. The GoreTex coat worked great, but the pants are very old and a bit leaky. No big deal it wasn't cold, and I was moving. I just changed jeans when I got home. I'd been wearing those for days anyway and was planning to swap out. My main complaint was that I was dressed too warm though for 39 degrees.
When I left the park, I walked through the cemetery and then out to the main highway to see what it looked like because the streets everywhere else I have been walking were still full of slush. The highway was mostly clear of ice, but there was still very wet slush. Rather than deal with getting hosed down as vehicles drove by, I ducked back on a side street back to my house.
The melt-off has started a bit, and it's about to start in earnest. I see a lot more water running off than would be explained by the amount of rain we have, so I assume the ice has become isothermal (warmed to the melting point) and will melt off quickly now. I may awake to mostly clear streets. I might walk to the post office, or maybe I'll drive since I'm expecting a package or two. They could be delayed by the weather. I also wouldn't mind stocking back up on fresh produce.
The news says this is the worst ice storm we've had in 30 years.
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The candy coffee thing is why I'm not a huge fan of the flavoured coffee... plus there's a kind of chemical aftertaste which bothers me.
It doesn't have to be sweet even if you put a small amount of brown sugar in. If not - it's just coffee and some bitter chocolate flavor. No chemical aftertaste, and I'm pretty much a coffee snob. I weigh my beans for goodness sake!
One of my coworkers is coffee snob enough to be able to tell the difference between different exotic beans by flavour/scent alone. He roasts his own beans... Whereas I am a country boy who didn't taste coffee until in my late teens and my description of the best coffee is something like "meh, it's all grist for the mill."1 -
Change is always possible. In fact, it's the only constant.
I drank plenty of bad coffee in grad school. We had a "coffee club" where you paid up front and could drink coffee at will. Otherwise they wanted a tiny bit of $$ per cup. It was burned brown water made from coffee in a tin. But it was weak enough that I could drink it all day. Oh just thinking of it makes me sad.
I used to not be fond of parsnips and rutabaga. See? Things CAN change. Then again it's not that important. If it's just a cup to get things started in the morning, and if that's a routine that you're adapted to, it probably still brings you joy. If it were me, I'd have to start drinking tea. Oddly enough - I am starting to enjoy tea more again. Happens from time to time. Still not giving up coffee.0 -
You guys are giving me flashbacks to the coffee club coffee at work, back when I had to work. Almost thick sometimes, usually overcooked, and pretty much always with a layer of iridescent scum on top in the pot. $5 a month, all you could drink, or almost chisel out of the pot sometimes.
Even though I don't love the current blend I'm sampling (right now, as it happens), it's orders of magnitude more pleasant than that stuff. This is an enjoyable beverage, a step below ideal. That work coffee was a useful drug.
Lately, I've been buying beans at a local roaster just down the road from me instead of at Costco. It's been fun trying different coffees from their long list. (These are different origins and roasts, not flavored coffees. They also have a long list of flavored coffees, but I don't like 'em.)
I grind the beans at home, do the single-cup pour-over, adding the coffee to quite a lot of hot skimmed milk. If I feel fancy, I froth the milk to fluff. Even the less-favored beans/blends are good. I'm grateful.
P.S. Eccentrically, I also do standing side leg raises while holding the small electric grinder in one hand, 20 on each side. Coffee improves balance in my life in more ways than one. I even have a photo. But none of this is outdoor exercise. 
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That's a nice rock @AnnPT77. Do you have friends who are potters? I need to dig out a mug a friend made for me; he's into raku. It's a bit on the small side, so I don't use it as often.
When I'm trying to make coffee OUTSIDE, especially for a group when on a river trip, I EXERCISE a method that makes a nice batch. I have a 2.5 liter stainless steel airpot and a #6 coffee cone. The airpot is a Stanley, but the cone doesn't really sit on it well. The hole is too small. My friend made me a "coffee gasget" out of cedar that sits on the airpot and holds the cone. It really doesn't take that long to make a pot of coffee. It's easy to make a partial pot if you need more but not a whole pot. I have one of those metal mesh coffee filters, but it only really works with a little coarser grind. For paper filters, I often let them dry on a rock briefly before tossing them in the trash - just to save weight and reduce moisture in the garbage. I apply some mineral oil to the gasket from time to time to help prevent splitting since it is cedar. Neither the wood or the oil add any perceptible flavor to the coffee. I drink it black, so I would know.
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@mtaratoot, the mug was from an art fair potter. I love it so much. Yes, it's pretty. But more importantly, it fits my hand. For reasons lost in genetic history, I have huge hands for a person my size, decently big for anyone. (My ring finger is a size 10 even when I'm thin; it was 13-14 when I was obese. Most women's rings aren't larger than 9. I usually wear men's large in gloves.) Most cups fit awkwardly in my hand. That one is perfect.
For camping OUTSIDE with other people, or when I have people over for brunch or something, I have an insulated pitcher and a #6 cone, too. My #2 cone is porcelain, though I have a plastic one of those for outdoor use, too (from before I had the porcelain one). The #6 is plastic. Getting the #6 out of the top cupboard feels like EXERCISE.
I tried the mesh filter for home use during the pandemic when finding certain things was hard, and I was trying to minimize shopping trips. Too much coffee dust in the cup, even with a coarser grind. (My grinder is a champ, probably 40 years old now and going strong, but blades not burrs.) For canoe camping, we sometimes used paper, sometimes mesh.1 -
Hmm... maybe the old dawg can learn a new trick?
At the house on PEI, I have a good Braun burr coffee grinder and a Brawn coffeemaker with a wire cone. I do prefer the taste of coffee made from fresh grown beans. Here in Texas, my wife bought a tiny Walmart special which burns two cups of coffee at a time. On the upside, the coffee from H-E-B (local grocery chain) is decent... although, as mentioned, the flavoured ones have that unpleasant aftertaste.
I've heard of "pour over" but I've never seen one or at least I didn't recognize it as such. Several people in my orbit have Keurig machines.0 -
A pour-over is just a cone that you put a filter in and pour near-boiling water over. I use one of these:
On my last Grand Canyon trip, someone had a collapsible one. It could make good coffee, but because the entire exterior of the filter was exposed, it let the cold wind cool the coffee off even before it hit his mug. It looked something like this:
They also make models with wire mesh so you don't need a paper filter. I like the idea, but I don't like the idea of cleaning them. Coffee grounds are really hard on wastewater piping. They are a common contributor to clogged drains.
I also have a coffee press. Some people call it a French press. It makes good coffee. It takes a coarser grind. The reasons I don't use it are:- Inevitably, some of the grounds get into your cup. The coffee will keep brewing as you drink it.
- If you want more than one cup, you need to clean the damn thing between cups. If you make two cups at a time, the second cup will have been brewing the whole time AND will be cold.
- Paper filters remove cafestol. A French press does not. Cafestol has been implicated in raising serum cholesterol.
I still don't own a burr grinder. I almost bought a hand-crank model a few weeks ago, but looking at some videos, it would take me ten minutes to crank it for every cup. No thanks. It would be nice to be able to have fresh ground coffee on the river, but I'd rather have coffee sooner than grind, grind, grind.
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I seem to keep taking walks. I grabbed a few images along the way. The ice has mostly melted off except in sheltered areas. The rivers have come up. Yesterday's walk was in part to do some reconnaissance and see how much garbage was going into the rivers from the camps and elsewhere. I am sad to report that there was a lot. Bagged garbage. Empty beverage containers. Garbage cans. Propane bottles. You name it.
I walked back south along the highway, then down a side street and through the cemetery where I could look down on an old area that at one point was connected to the river and is now called a lake. It really only has water in the winter. I walked down into the park, but I couldn't even get into the parking lot. The river was flowing in the lot. It was actually pretty interesting because the river flows up into the parking area and then up the road into the park, and only from there does it flow what would otherwise be "upstream" into the sports fields. I was wearing muck boots, and I tried to find a shallow way across to get out to the fields and walk some more, but I couldn't find a way to get through that wouldn't have flooded my boots. I considered walking home and putting on some waders and going back. Instead I got on my bike.
I rode to the south entrance to the park, then rode the bike path up to about a place about a half mile from my house that I was maybe 20 yards from during my walk - less than a half mile from my house. I rode about three miles to get to a place a half mile from my house. I had to ride about a half mile through some slush where the paved path is protected by trees. That was "interesting." The river was up for sure. Note that sign; "Boat and trailer parking only." Yesterday it was only available for boats.
On the way home, instead of going back out to the street from the park, I continued on the paved path to the south end to the City Limit. There was one small area of inundation, but I was pretty sure I could ride through it without getting my feet wet. Yep. Probably about four inches deep. I went all the way to the City Limit, then ducked back out onto the street system and worked my way back. I stopped several times to observe things and eventually to knock on the door of a house that had a truck parked outside with the headlights on and the doors locked. No answer. Bummer. My hands eventually warmed up about five minutes or so before I got home. Total about 7.5 miles.
Today I walked downtown to check mail, stopped at a thrift shop on the way home, and walked back down to the park. The water level was falling. You could get almost to the boat ramp, but part of the paved trails were still under water. Two portable toilets were missing - probably downstream. Very sad. Also a portable hand washing station.
There was a little stick that had washed up against the picnic tables there.
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I should add some of the sad statistics from our recent storm:
One person died when their car started to slide, they got out and tried to stop it, they got pinned between the car and a rock, and they froze to death. Three adults and a baby were in a car that a big branch fell on bringing a power line down with it. The adults exited the car and were electrocuted to death. A woman died when a tree fell on an RV and it caught fire.
The authorities sent out warnings to please don't go on the roads, and probably stay home because both EMS and the hospital were overwhelmed with crashes and slip/fall injuries. One man died in a slip/fall injury because he went out literally, "...to see just how slippery it was."2 -
I should add some of the sad statistics from our recent storm:
One person died when their car started to slide, they got out and tried to stop it, they got pinned between the car and a rock, and they froze to death. Three adults and a baby were in a car that a big branch fell on bringing a power line down with it. The adults exited the car and were electrocuted to death. A woman died when a tree fell on an RV and it caught fire.
The authorities sent out warnings to please don't go on the roads, and probably stay home because both EMS and the hospital were overwhelmed with crashes and slip/fall injuries. One man died in a slip/fall injury because he went out literally, "...to see just how slippery it was."
Sadly many folks don't take warnings seriously. When I was working patrol, it wasn't unusual for drivers to argue with us after we'd closed a road for safety reasons. Like, you think we're closing the road for fun?1
