All the Good Names Were Taken

For what seemed like endless days, we were cooped up inside while the Ice Storm of '13 brought down half the trees in Sioux Falls. In the evenings, after the kids went to bed, I'd sit at the computer and listen to the nearly constant cracking and crashing of limbs and wonder what the trees were going to look like in the morning. As I listened, I'd brainstorm what I was going to call the blog post about the storm. Well, before I ever got around to blogging about it, two of my Bloggin' Buddies had used my two best ideas: "Weathering the Storm" and "When the Bough Breaks."

The storm started on Monday night, but on Tuesday morning, although the trees were iced over and some branches had begun to break, the roads were still pretty decent, so there was school. Well, by the time school let out for the day, several schools were without electricity, driving conditions had worsened considerably, and more than just a few branches were falling from trees. Bill was at work that day/night, so as I sat at the computer, I'd text him, "Another one bites the dust," and, "I wonder what's going to be left of our trees," every time I'd hear trees splitting. By Wednesday morning, this is what our neighborhood looked like (and this was before the six inches of snow fell Wednesday night and Thursday).

 The view of our neighbor's yard from our deck.

 The tree that's right outside the window where I sit at the computer.

Another tree from our backyard.

 The front yard.

Standing at our corner, facing south. This is the way I face out from the computer, so I saw lots of these fall.

 Standing at our corner, facing north.

Bill's car after a night in the parking lot at the fire station.

These pictures barely do justice to the tree carnage. By Thursday night, many of those limbs that are bent in this picture had snapped. The kids didn't have school Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday because of the unsafe conditions. Bill had a couple of busy days at work on Tuesday and Thursday. We even had another fire family spend the night with us on Thursday because of their electricity being out and because storms are definitely more fun with friends (especially when the friends are all people ages 8 and under who have been cooped up in their houses since Tuesday)!