The recent snow and ice is certainly bad, but although I lived in CT for a year, it is hard to comprehend the problems it causes with the infrastructure and way of life.
My current wife (Joy2) was born in central PA, grew up in Levittown, PA and then lived in CT for 15 years. She is always after me to get extra firewood, a generator, extra food and the whole works (even chains) because of what she saw through the years.
I grew up in St. Paul, MN and we only had one or two short (30 minute) outages in 25 years prior to 1965. I later built a lake home 150 miles north in the woods and plugged a clock radio in when I started building. When I sold it 15 years later, the clock radio was never reset (except for daylight time). We had underground power and had a large LP tank so there was never a problem whether -42F or 30" of snow. That was with Joy1.
We, Joy2 and I, now live in a townhouse and have 2- Jimmy 4WD SUVs and underground power, cable, but she still worries when the weather forcast comes on. - It all goes to show that much of winter is a STATE OF MIND and what you grow up with and what kind of old fashioned infrastructure you have to inherit. We had more ice outages in Virginia Beach than in Minnesota.
Someday this winter, I will put the liner in my jacket, but is too much of a hassle. I just leave the liner in the back of my SUV along with my boots. The liner prevents you from warming up when you get inside, since you never walk too far in the bitter cold.
Dick
