More on the way...

I had a rather eerie drive last night on the way home. As I drove up the broadway extension through Oklahoma City I realized I couldn't see downtown. There were a few streetlights on, and the big floodlights were on (oddly) over the Bricktown ballpark. But the highrises were all dark. Always over the holidays, the two tallest buildings downtown have big white crosses lit up on their sides, but there was nothing. All of downtown seemed not to exist. A thick blanket of fog added to the creepiness of it.

On a more cheerful note, however, Byron's Liquor Warehouse was back up and running yesterday evening on 23rd street, and the traffic signals were back up, though only blinking red. So there's progress. I mean, where there's a liquor store, there's civilization.

Other good news: the electrician is at our house this morning, reattaching our meter to the wall and getting the power lines up off the ground. OG&E has set up meter drops in parking lots around the metro where electricians can come to pick up new meter boxes for folks. They have them piled up in flats of boxes and they're handing them out like water off the back of the FEMA truck. Our electrician said we were (as we already knew) incredibly lucky to still have power, considering the state of our lines.

And there's more weather on the way. It's pea soup out there this morning, with fog freezing on the trees, and the freezing rain and snow are due some time in the afternoon. They say it won't be anything like what we had, but could really add a new layer of misery to the situation, and of course slow down the power line repairs. I have seen several instances of house fires caused by electrical problems, and a fancy hotel at the Waterford plaza caught fire last night due to electrical shorts, right after Rudy Giuliani's big fundraiser, I guess.

The Oklahoma City superintendent says he doesn't know when schools will reopen. The gym roof on a middle school in Norman collapsed yesterday under the weight of the ice. My folks are keeping Grayson again today. He's very excited about helping Papa Phil clean up the downed trees in their yard today. I guess the thing about boys and power tools starts early. He was jazzed about the prospect of the chain saw.

Here are some pics of the trees in their neighborhood. They lost their beautiful river birch in the front, and an entire Japanese black pine in the back. The other picture is of the flattened pear tree in their neighbor's yard across the street. Those ornamental pear trees just got decimated, everywhere.

The Oklahoman has a nice gallery of storm shots, if you're interested. Go to www.newsok.com and click on Photos. You can choose the "Ice Storm" gallery and look through a bunch of them. I'm going to post some more here after I go out and shoot some in the old neighborhoods in Norman at lunch.