Intergalactic House of Paisley

Six years ago (oddly enough, also a Wednesday), it started raining here in Kansas City. It was just cold enough to freeze. About 8p, Carol Doms called, and, having lost power at her house, asked if she could come over. We said sure, we've got a spare bedroom in the house now. Shortly after she arrived, and just as I had sent an ad for the 2006 WorldCon bid off, our power died (and just at the start of Law & Order too, damnit!). We sat up and chatted by lamplight for a while, then crashed. Ro and I lay in bed, listening to the slowly rising tinkle of ice turning into a huge crash! as a tree fell apart. After the first few, we got used to it and went to sleep.

The next morning, I went out to get the paper, and was greeted by the sight of a huge limb from one of the neighbor's trees laying across their fence and our driveway. I spent a fair amount of time breaking off branches until I could lift the main limb and hoist it back over the fence and out of the way. Then I did what I could to clear the drive and the cars of ice. At some point, the neighbot's dog came wandering out, walking gingerly through the woody warzone of their yard. He stopped near me, and sat and surveyed the carnage, with a look on his face that clearly said "I don't know what the fuck happened, but I'm sure I'm going to be blamed for it."

The metro area was devastated. Large chunks of the city (and hundreds of thousands of people) were out of power for several weeks. We were lucky, ours was back on that afternoon. It was fortunate that Carol joined us. At some point after she left her house, a limb crashed down and blocked her driveway, which would have kept her from being able to get to her car for a week or more. As it was, she stayed with us for a week. The most amusing evening was that Friday. I had to work late, and I arrived home to find Rohanna's mother getting ready to crash on our sofa bed. Her assisted living apartment complex had lost power, so Ro brought her home for the night. After I greeted her and wished her a good night, I climbed the stairs, and heard someone talking to Ro. As I got closer, I realized the voice wasn't Carol's, and it turned out it was Jennifer Dunton, whose apartment had lost power that day. The house, for all its faults, was at least able to hold everyone in reasonable comfort.

That time period also marked the death of Big Ed Moore, one of the best guys I've ever known. The SF club was holding a wake for him, and I wound up driving south to find a liquor store with Rogue's Dead Guy Ale to take to the party. Passing through the Brookside neighborhood was truly bizarre, with the lights out for blocks around and tree limbs piled hither and yon.

A couple of weeks later, Cleo held the Dawn Patrol con at the late, lamented HoJo/Comfort Inn in Independence, and some of the rooms we were supposed to be using for fans were being occupied by electrical crews from out of state who had come here to help fix things. We didn't complain. We've had several ice storms here since, but the mass culling in '02 seems to have done a fine job of removing potential threats to the power lines.