Mountain Home is in the process of recovery from a devastating ice storm that crippled a large portion of Northwest Arkansas, parts of Missouri and Kentucky. It was a record setting event of epic proportions! Huge trees were splintered, literally shredded from the weight of nearly 2 inches of ice. Power lines stretched and then snapped, taking the poles with them as they crashed to the ground.

And the sound. We huddled by the fireplace for warmth that night as the trees cracked and crashed around us. In the erie silence that seems so unatural in a power outage it was easy to hear the forest disintegrating, trees groaning and falling as the ice came down relentlessly for hours.

The next morning, when the sun peeked out for a brief glimpse at the destruction, the ice glittered evilly from every surface. And still the trees came down.

Days passed with no power. Shelters opened and shell shocked home owners came in for relief from the frigid nights.

It was 8 days before power was restored to my home. And there are people still without power a full two weeks after the event. Estimates are approximate for restoring power to the furthest reaches of the area, but some place full restoration of power sometime in the next couple of weeks.

It is an ice event we will never forget. There are elderly people here who have lived their entire lives in these hills who have never experienced the total anialation of the electrical grid that was caused by this massive storm.

As I drive through the neighborhoods I am amazed by the piles of branches and fallen timber laying in haphazard piles everywhere I look. On some roads, there is merely a one lane path through the piles, cut log ends exposed at the roadsides where dilegent homeowners hacked their way out, or in.

The trees will recover, people will fix the frozen pipes and lives will return to normal, but I will always look differently at those graceful old trees shading my house.