Ice Storm

This must be the ice storm of the century. At least I do not remember any ice storm that was worse. The rain began and ice began forming the night of December 10 and it rained throughout the day on Tuesday, December 11. Our electricity went off Tuesday morning and it was not fully restored until Saturday evening. And then the rural water company that furnishes our water from Maryville, MO, could not pump water for their water tower. So we simply had to move out. No lights, no heat and very little water. So on Tuesday at noon the students were told they could begin their Christmas break early. They were due to leave on Thursday but were mostly gone by Wednesday evening. Fortunately the roads were not too bad. Then on Wednesday the monks moved out with about 23-24 going to Clyde monastery, about 8-10 to the parish at Stanberry and four to the home of Herb and Beverly VanVactor in Stanberry (Beverly works in our business office). All these places had electricity. Clyde has a generator that will run most of their plant. We had to stay at these places until Saturday. Sometime after midnight on Friday they got the electricity on for the south part of campus, including the infirmary. On Saturday then they spent the entire day connecting the remainder of the campus. Aquila Electric which furnishes our electricity had their men working long hours and far into the night. There are still many in the county who do not have electricity. It seems the worst ice was from about St. Joseph, MO and then north into southern Iowa.

Now we are trying to get everything up and running. Unfortunately it seems that the boilers for heating St. Joseph Hall and the Basilica were frozen and so broken and now need to be replaced before we can use the Basilica. And of course we are worrying about other pipes freezing now in St. Joseph Hall. There is also no heat in the kitchen but the lights do work there and the stoves all work so they cooking there.

I have included one picture of the ice but you can see others by going to the following web site:
http://kennethosb.smugmug.com/gallery/4002919/1

So much for this edition.