Hemlocks sitrep today, Thursday, February 26th

Hemlocks sitrep today, Thursday, February 26^th

Just so you know, I am obviously still alive and doing OK. It is just not that bad, at least compared to some of my earlier experiences. Now when I retired from the Marines, I proudly said I didn’t have to put up with this crap anymore, but I never anticipated coming back to Monterey, Tennessee. So here I go again, I guess. Bummer.

There are allegedly still thousands without power and heat going on 5 days now. The Hemlocks now has public electricity and hence extra heat, like extra to what the wood stoves already put out. None of the water pipes have burst, so far at least. It is forecasted to get down to  around 16 F tonight and much the same Friday night. Then hopefully the forecasts are correct in that things will warm up a little after that period.

The Hemlocks driveway is now very passable, though I still use 4WD in the driveway just to be safer. I thank XXXX for that. He spent over a day clearing it out, and got a cold for his effort, too.

The public highways are just fine, at least from the winter point of view. Said another way, the government salt and brine trucks and scraper trucks are doing a good job.

I passed a large convoy of electrical repair trucks heading up highway 70N towards Crossville, so slowly but surely things are returning to normal winter weather.  God bless the crews that work out in this cold, too. At least highway 70N is open again to business and commerce for one day now. Many electrical customers, including me, are on this route, by the way. And to give a perspective, where the Hemlocks is, along highway 70 N,  I would estimate 100% of the power telephone poles were snapped and on the ground just in a two mile stretch. That was somewhere around 20 (+) poles or so. All in all hundreds of poles are down, and extra are being shipped in I hear.

Everyone is pulling together. This region will make most just proud to be an American.

Last, it did snow 3 to 4 inches last night, and it is around 29 F right now, so the winter is still around.

Yep, I must be a pansy now, like a regular American, as the hot shower at the local motel was good for my morale after only 4 days. I think I said my record is 39 days in my earlier US Marines time. Now in fairness, I did use “baby wipes” to do poor man’s sponge baths, so I wasn’t totally gross. And everyone else did much the same, so no one seemed to notice, or at least said nothing to each other. We got our baby wipes from the US mail (from the USA), by the way. And every so often I had access to a cold shower thanks to the SeaBees, but usually declined in favor of the “baby wipes”.

PS. Even the local grocery store I go to had a morning checkout lady with a cold, so it is going around. This is a terrible time to have a cold on top of everything else. And her dog and cat were surviving just fine, too. And her husband has only one leg due to a forklift accident several years ago. And they are doing OK, too.