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Updated 7/24/08

Ice Storm 2009
Natural disaster in Paducah

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Thank you to everyone who asked about our welfare during the massive natural disaster here in Paducah. It was indeed heartbreaking on Tuesday night (January 27, 2009), listening, every few seconds to the crashing of the limbs as they were ripped from the treetops by the weight of the ice. There are virtually no trees anywhere in Western Kentucky that have not had their branches shredded. When I look out I feel like they are screaming in pain. Paducah will be showing the effects of this storm for a very long time. It remains to be seen how this will effect progress on the renovations at the convention center. We are all holding our collective breath. The three new homes on our block seem to be on the same power grid as a little rehabilitation hospital a block away, so we were one of only 1000 out of 22,000 who got power back on Wednesday. My assistants were not so lucky. Linda got hers back on Sunday night, and Kelsie got hers on Monday. There are many who will have to wait as long as a month or more to have power restored. The power company in Lyon county, where our farm is, will not even give an estimate of how long it will be. On Wednesday morning I left a note on the door at the Etcetera Coffee House that we had power and heat, and we had quite a crowd drifting in and out for the first several days for food, showers, or just a bit of warmth. When I started to make soup, I was elbowed aside, first by Grace, who used to run the Stranded Cow Cafe, and later by Michael Terra, who, at one time, taught cooking at the Cordon Bleu Academy in Paris. If you're going to have a natural disaster, having a French chef on standby is a good idea. Neighbors brought in food that was thawing in their refrigerators and magic happened. The ice finally melted on Sunday, and the clean-up started immediately and will continue for months. The branches were piled so deep I couldn't even walk through my yard, but I was able to get an early spot on the schedule of one of the clean-up crews, and most of the branches and debris were hauled off from our property on Monday (February 2). A week later there were still five people staying with me from outlying areas where power had not been restored. They were finally able to purchase generators to run the furnaces and water heaters in their homes. Many people are still without power as of Sunday, February 8. Here are a few pictures taken the day after the ice storm.
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