November 2020 Pandemic Update

Everything fell apart during the week of October 25.  It was around October 22 that I heard that we might have winter precipitation on Tuesday and Wednesday of the next week.  I didn't think much of it, since 90% of the time when winter weather is predicted in Oklahoma, absolutely nothing happens.  The temperature is almost always warmer than initially predicted, and the forecast fizzles out.  

On Sunday, October 25, I learned that the winter precipitation was expected to be an ice storm, but still, I didn't feel that it was that likely to happen.  On Monday, I could tell that it was going to happen and that it would almost certainly be catastrophic. 

Seriously... does absolutely everything have to go wrong in 2020?  Have we slipped into an alternate reality?  At the same time that we had the ice storm warning, New Orleans had a hurricane warning.  That is insane!

Courtesy of KSHB.com

The close proximity of the two storms caused them to affect each other, making both the ice storm and the hurricane worse than they otherwise would have been.  The hurricane became stronger, and the ice storm slowed down, lasting longer.

We had a catastrophic ice storm in December 2007.  The trees were heavily damaged or destroyed.  Power lines and poles fell.  It was dreadful.  The same scenario unfolded again but with one terrible difference.

Like in 2007, the temperature remained at 30 to 32 degrees as it rained for 48 hours.  But quite unfortunately, the trees were still fully covered with green leaves.  The leaves had just barely begun to change from green to yellow, and almost none had fallen. 

The tremendous weight of the ice on the leaves caused the trees to come down.  On some trees, we lost the entire 13 years of growth since the 2007 ice storm.  (The trees had just started looking okay again in the last few years.  Ugh!)  On many other trees, we lost that growth plus a lot more. 

One of the power lines behind my house came down.  All told, I didn't have power for 109 hours.  The first two days were awful.  It was overcast, cold, and raining.  The light coming in from outside was poor due to the cloud cover.  It was so dark!

I do have an inverter generator.  A generator is something that isn't used very often, but it is a lifesaver when it is needed.  The central unit for the front of the house was hooked up to it as well as the refrigerators and freezers.  I did not lose any food.

Due to a remodel, the back of my house has its own central unit.  That one remained disconnected.  Parts of the house were quite cold while other parts were okay but colder than normal.

Due to the widespread power outages, school was closed for three of the days that I didn't have power.  I was glad for that, since I was in no mood to work.  I went back to work on the fourth day that I didn't have power.  I realized how much the power outage was messing with my mind.  It's unnatural for us not to have power, since everything we do depends on it.  It really did mess me up.

After the power came on, I found that I was going into dark rooms and looking for whatever I needed without turning the lights on.  I would then realize that I had electricity and that I could actually turn the lights on.  The power was off for long enough that it did temporarily change my habits.  I think even now that I still have some trauma from it.  Either that, or I'm just traumatized from the entire experience of this incredibly bad year. 

I am discouraged that we had to move to virtual school for the week of November 16-20.  We went straight out of the ice storm and into another crisis.  Students do not learn well virtually.  My county is now red and continuing to worsen, and schools must not be open when the county is red.

We have no national leadership on Covid-19, and our numbers reflect that.  Oklahoma has no real leadership on Covid-19.  The governor pretends like he cares and that he is doing something, but his restrictions mean very little. 

I guess schools closing got his attention a little bit.  He wants schools to be open, so he has placed some ineffective minor restrictions in place.  State employees must now wear masks, but apparently most of them already were.  So the state employee mask mandate doesn't mean that much.  Restaurants must now close at 11 PM.  That's rather ineffective considering that most people eat in restaurants before 11 PM.  What we actually need is a statewide mask mandate, but the governor said months ago that he would never do that.

I want school to be open.  My students want school to be open.  We learned of the switch to virtual learning just before the day ended on Friday, November 13.  The students were not happy.  In a normal year, we would welcome a day to stay at home.  There was no happiness.  We already had five months of school closure from the middle of March to the middle of August.  We then lost three days of school during the ice storm in October.  Now, school is closed again because of the surging Covid-19 infection rate.  We just want our normal lives back.  Please?