It could be worse

Sometimes there’s simply nothing more you can do but sit around and wait for the ice to melt. For many here in Daviess County, this week is one of those times.
Friends and relatives not too distant express surprise about us being ice-locked. What a difference a few degrees in outdoor temperatures can make – or a few yards down a gravel road off a highway. It just doesn’t matter whatever is forecast or posted by the WeatherChannel. What matters lies just outside your door.
I am amazed, relieved, and proud of so many GPC employees who braved the slick glare of gravel roads to keep our business operations running nearly normal so far this week. And those unable to make it to work were absent for good reason. What a blessing to work with such people!
Things could always be worse. Electric service was never disrupted. Temperatures warmed enough for most tree limbs to escape ice damage even as the melt-off layered the glaze on the ground below. Vehicles started.
There’s no more ice-melt available for purchase anywhere in Gallatin, which is to be expected. As I pound out these thoughts waiting for the ice to melt, it’s snowing (again) outside – and if the new stuff can add some grit in any way to the glaze, it’s welcomed.
An omen occurred last Friday when our internet and computer network here within the GPC printing plant failed. By process of elimination a router switch was eventually identified as the culprit, and a replacement found in Kansas City for delivery first thing Monday morning.
If the same equipment failure had not occurred until Monday, my stress level would have skyrocketed beyond reason. But dealing with the problems on Friday allowed us to reconfigure so that three of our nine computer stations were connected to Wi-Fi – which reopened the path for the electronic transfer of pages from our customers. So, with these adjustments, our paths are actually more stable now than before.
I hear people gripe about how nobody wants to work anymore, but that’s just not true and we’ve got a crew of folks working here to prove it. Luckily, by swapping chores whenever necessary and everyone willing to do whatever the next step, our delivery schedules thus far have been met this week despite Monday’s postal holiday for Martin Luther King Day.
Lots of folks work hard for you to receive this newspaper every week. If you’re reading this, then you’re holding a piece of the evidence in your hands.
The National Weather Service defines an ice storm as a storm which results in the accumulation of at least a quarter inch of ice on exposed surfaces. The thickest accumulation of ice on record occurred in January, 1961, during an ice storm in northern Idaho. That single storm caused an accumulation of 8 inches. So, by comparison, the inch-thick glaze on some roadways here could be worse.
The Great Ice Storm of 1998 was actually five successive ice storms in January that caused massive cumulative damages and at least 35 fatalities. The storms hit both sides of the USA-Canada border, from eastern Ontario to southern Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in Canada, and from northern New York State to central Maine in the U.S.
In eastern Ontario and southwestern Quebec, over 3 million people were without electricity for up to a month and a half. Over 16,000 members of the Canadian Forces were deployed to help manage the situation, making it the largest deployment of Canadian military personnel since the Korean War.
Here in Daviess County, few winters have produced as much ice as during the winter of 1937.
On the night of Jan. 6, 1937, a round sleet fell, followed by a layer of freezing rain. This layer of ice lay on the ground approximately five weeks. Each time a new sleet would fall, things got worse.
One man made cleats out of mowing machine sickle blades for peoples’ shoes. A schoolboy used a pair of skates to skate to school for two of the winter months.
Farmers also had to find creative ways to get their livestock to water. Some farmers took manure out of the barn and used it to make a path; others put gunny sacks on the horses’ feet and chopped a path in the ice.
There is no reliable estimate on the number of cattle, horses and mules found dead with broken legs or so badly injured they had to be killed. There is one report from a farmer near Gilman City who lost 14 head of cattle — nine cows found smothered to death under a haystack while five fell on the ice and froze to death.
Perhaps recalling such news isn’t so smart as I now prepare to be the substitute driver on our next delivery route. It’s not the trip going (with the weight of all those papers providing for more traction) but the trip back empty on my mind.
I hope the radio in the delivery van works. For some reason I keep humming “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” … how that good ship and true was a bone to be chewed when the gales of November came early … how when the afternoon came it was freezin’ rain in the face of a hurricane west wind … how the church bell chimed till it rang 29 times for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.
The mournful song is so haunting: “Does anyone know where the love of God goes, When the waves turn the minutes to hours?”
Yes, the ice right now for us landlubbers is thick and threatening. But we must remember there is a vast difference between what truly threatens and what mostly just threatens inconvenience.
So, I’m the substitute for two missing drivers, taking two different routes normally targeted in opposite directions beginning in just a few minutes. It promises to be a particularly long, cold day. But believe you me, I know things could be so very much worse.