Back in 2000, Oklahoma had a terrible, terrible winter. Everything froze solid, entire trees were encased in ice, their tops literally touching the ground. It was all horrifyingly beautiful. A very large tree right beside my mother's house is still nearly touching the ground, it never really recovered from that storm's effects. I recall weeks later when everything thawed, you could go outside and it sounded like a warzone, with trees breaking everywhere in all directions non-stop.

We were out of power for a good 36 hours. It sucked so bad. But fortunately our telephone, water and gas somehow managed to work without incident. There were other people in the area who lost all of those, some for weeks. Many local businesses actually began giving food away because it was all going to go bad due to such a long lack of refrigeration.

I really hate mother nature at times.