----
1-28-2026 - Ice is devastating
----

Wow.  That was an epic ice storm!  I've never seen anything like it.
You see, I live in the Nashville area and we got hit with a killer ice
storm this past weekend and we're still reeling in its aftermath.

I've experienced a few extreme weather events in my day, but I was
unprepared for the devastation caused by the buildup of ice over the
course of Saturday night.  A freezing rain / sleet mixture fell in
earnest all night and well into Sunday afternoon.  By 7:30A, the trees
had started popping and crashing.  We lost power thereabouts.  It was
a long, cold day.  I spent it attending to a variety of preparedness
exercises.  Being under-caffeinated, one of these exercises was to
pitch my tailgating tent over our patio and set up my camp kitchen.
That manual coffee grinder I picked up last year was suddenly very
practical and I thoroughly enjoyed my afternoon moka-pot.

I have to attempt to describe the sound -- it was unreal.  I am not
exagerating when I tell you that there was not a single minute that
day in which there was not some kind of loud pop or crash ringing out
from the woods surrounding our end-of-the-cul-de-sac home.  It was
uncannily similar to gunfire.  It was disconcerting, to say the
least.  I was not especially concerned about our home being struck,
as we have a mostly-safe margin, but I was concerned for our
many neighbors with big, old trees near their homes.

The time I spent outside (shoveling and brewing coffee) was
visceral.  It became truly ridiculous -- watching as tree after
tree came crashing into our yard.  I had to laugh out loud (to
keep from crying, I think).

We are now days into this thing and today was the first day we
braved a trip onto the roads -- my stir-crazy wife venturing out to
one of our favorite coffee shops we knew to be open.  It turns out
the roads are still a huge mess out there and power is out all
over the place.  She remarked on how reminiscent it was of true
natural disasters we've witnessed through the years.

We have been fortunate, really.  We ended up getting our power
back Sunday night and we were well provisioned.  Our Internet
service was restored Monday night and we've even been able to do our
remote work again.  (The kids are naturally out of school and will
be for the rest of the week.)  We have many friends that are still
without power and have had to bunk with neighbors or check into a
hotel.  And many are still stuck in their frigid homes.

It echoes the isolation of covid while also trigering the PTSD of
Nashvillians that endured the Great Flood of 2010.  It feels like too
much -- especially when we are confronted as Americans with the
devastating brutality of another kind of ICE.  I couldn't help but
feel that the crashing down of all of those trees was symbolic -- that
2026 would be a year where things just keep crashing down around us.
There's an icy chill outside all of our homes tonight.  But.  I will
not forget that Spring is coming.  I know that the devastation in
my own backyard will be replaced by new life, as the canopy gives
way to more Light.  

.