Darren Addy
EF5
I'm getting "invalid attachment" messages on all of Mike's most recent links.
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Ryan McGinnis
EF5
Mike -- if you get this any time soon (I don't have your phone # or I'd call,) email me; I was mentioning your photos to one of our editors, and they were very interested in seeing them to run in the paper. I told them about the photos of the downed transmission towers, the thick ice around things, and the confused looking cow -- they seemed very interested. If they run it, they'd credit you and likely include a link to your website (if it's back up by then.)
digicana at gmail dot comLast edited by a moderator:Mike Hollingshead
All the ice had melted from the ice storm a week ago. The tree damage from that one was fairly obvious as I drove to my target on the 29th. So this was all new ice. GID has some stuff on their site about precip totals via radar. They seemed a bit off from the glance I had.
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/gid/?n=stormsummary
None of those ice reports come from the worst areas. The 1 inch at Junita is close. It seemed to be the worst west of there and especially around Funk and Kenasaw.....well....most everywhere from Junita(roughly Hastings) west to at least Holdredge was all very bad.Last edited by a moderator:
Andrew Khan
EF5
Wow...very nice photographs Mike. I had not the slightest idea it got to be that frozen/frosty in the plains.
Karen Politte
EF5
Fortunately I got to look at Mike's photos before his site's bandwidth got exceeded.
Some of those images were pretty horrendous......blades of grass encased in what looks like solid glass, but actually it's ice. It's insane to think that a stalk of dried vegetation barely .5" thick can accumulate something that looks to me to be about 6" or more of solid ice.
It's a pity that this was an event that never got a whole lot of coverage. I hope those people out there in the Nebraskan winter wilderness get some power restored soon or life is going to become pretty miserable! From what I hear, Goodland got whacked too although with more of the snow-variety rather than ice accumulations. The Plains are renowned for their brutal winter weather sometimes.
KL
Gaetan Cormier
EF3
Wow! That reminds me so much of the Ice Storm we had here in the Montreal area in 1998. Like any other photogenic weather events, it's so beutifull but so destructive at the same time
Beautifull pics there Mike!
Chris C Sanner
EF5
WOW!
The ice looks like its an inch or more thick in many places, and those huge lines down is just shocking. That is some damage that will cause some people to not have power for at least a month if there is no other bad weather that delays/destructs furtherSean McMullen
Great pics Mike! Katie and I saw the same thing driving back on I-70 from Goodland Saturday. It seemed to get really bad in between Oakley and Hays. We wanted to stop and take a million pics but after driving around Colby and Goodland during and after the storm we just wanted to get out of there before dark.
My father in law is a regional manager for OPPD and was sent to Holdredge, NE as of now to help out with this disaster. Its kind of a funny situation we have in this family, my wife and I will leave to chase a storm or storms and when we get back her father has to take off to the same place to repair the damage. Anywho, he told me today that he has taken a bunch of pics but can't get them back to me because he can't get any internet in his hotel. I will try to post them when I get them.Mike Hollingshead
On TWC they just had a guy talking that toured the area with the governor, must have been a power company representative. He says, "There may be up to 1,000 poles down." Up to 1,000...lol. Orrrrrrr there could be a whole hell of a lot more than that. This was just after they said it was a whole lot worse than they originally thought. Then maybe one should say, "at least 1,000".
Dean what would you say, from what you saw? Up to or at least? Perhaps they are trying to gradually walk into reality. Maybe my idea of 1000 in that large of an area is off, I don't know. It seems obvious though when you see stretches of MANY down in area after area...in your LINE path....inside a very wide area...that it should be considerably greater than 1000.
I almost forgot. It was soooo strange LOOKING for power poles for your shots. That hit me over and over. Normally I'm going mad trying to get to locations without them.Mike Hollingshead
More from TWC, lol. What the hell is wrong with them? Earlier I see stranded cattle footage and massive snow drifts. What is the big caption at the top of the screen? Denver CO . Are the cattle stuck in rush hour traffic? Now they just showed some big ice accumulations while talking about all the power outages. What is the big caption at the top of that clip? Omaha NE . People must not be able to understand general areas like, southern Nebraska, or eastern Colorado, so lets just give them the biggest city in the state and leave it at that. I must have missed that inch + of solid ICE in Omaha. Maybe when a tornado or severe storm hits rural NE they'll just say, Omaha NE .
Amos Magliocco
EF5
See, we've been trying to tell you that there's no tornadoes in western Nebraska. There IS no western Nebraska!
Darren Addy
EF5
On local news (radio) heard a rep from one of the power companies (Southern Power, I think) saying that they (alone) had 3000 poles down/broken. They said that they get their power from NPPD. NPPD is talking damages in the tens of millions. If you add it all together, I think this might be a good time to look into switching over to natural gas.
Brian Stertz
EF5
Pretty incredible icing...I've seen that before while I was in school at OU. I had to get into my car with a baseball bat. I believe this nasty Nebraska ice storm was probably an even worse situation than that was.Dean L. Cosgrove
EF1
Here is part of what I posted in Reports along with an update from my Jan 2nd ice storm trip :
I will briefly (( try)) to express what I saw January 1 , 2007 in SC NE.
Mother Nature had a magnificent ice sculpture at every stop I made . It was breathtaking beauty with the back drop of incredible destruction to trees and power lines. This storm changed the landscape.
I had mixed feelings similar to tornadic destruction. I feel sorry for all those people who will not have power perhaps for several weeks.
Based on what I observed I would estimate that thousands of poles are down in SC through NE Nebraska.
I took 175 pics January 1st of this historic ice storm. Prior to this event, the most pics I had taken of anything in one day was about 50 .
Jan 2nd I spent the day in Phelps County , NE . The extent of the damage really started to sink in as I saw several trucks loaded with poles and other supplies arrive.
Just using one E/W road as an example --ALL-- poles/lines were down for several miles . The crews were removing what remained of the damaged poles . They will not be repairing the electrical system along this road they will need to start from nothing and totally re-build it .
The local radio station told people in rural areas to prepare to be without power for perhaps several weeks .
I took an additional 90 pics Jan 2nd in this area . One of the most amazing things I saw was ice so thick that it totally filled a fence with a wall of ice .
The ice was up to 3" thick in this area.
The ice was so thick in the tall grass in the following pic that I was able to walk on TOP of the grass . Lets just say that it was quite an adventure to get up to this fence
One word: amazing
Dean Cosgrove
http://www.chasetours.com/
Tim Stoecklein
EF5
Drove from the in-law's place on the plains of E. CO yesterday after dodging road closures throughout CO for the past week, and I can tell you that from around Oakley to Wakeeney, KS and south they were hit VERY hard by the ice. Some of those people will be lucky if they get power back by next week. We talked to lots of family around the Sharon Springs, KS area that received 30+ inches of snow............amazing.
Eight foot drifts were surrounding the farm where we were, and that was with 15" of snow.
Great pics Mike!Similar threads
