This calls for cocoa…stat

Yesterday I posted a picture of the fountain at work with some icicles hanging on the tiers.  The girls at work and I all thought it was so pretty.  We ooohed and aaahed and went out into the bitter, freezing cold to take pictures with our phones.

Last night was even colder.  Really cold.  Our little city woke up to a world of hurt this morning.  Southwest Gas can’t get gas to half the damn state so those poor people don’t have heat.  Water mains broke all over town.  In fact, my kids school is closed today and tomorrow because three of the four main water lines broke and the fire sprinklers exploded.  They have three plumbing crews working on it.  I can’t even begin to imagine the bill three plumbing companies are going to charge. 

As I drove to work, there were gysers all over town.  I can just see the plumbers nestled all snug in their beds, dreams of hefty invoices dancing in their heads.

But honestly, this town is a mess.  The whole state really.  I know that it’s much worse in other parts of the country, but my little berg was not made for this nonsense.  Our underground pipes are very close to the surface.  Our infrastructure isn’t staffed for this kind of weather.  They are even considering calling for a State of Emergency.

I called Kurt this morning because I heard a rumor it was 45 in Anchorage.  It was 19 when I went to work, and I’m just saying, I don’t want to live in a place colder than Alaska.  Kurt informed me it was 25 in Anchorage but that Kenai was 45 since it’s further inland.  He urged me to go on living because soon enough it would be hot and I could complain about that.

So, today our fountain at work looked like this.

Looks like a wedding cake, right?  Like a Disneyland winter wedding cake.

Later, the maintenance guy came out and spent three hours beating the icicles off with a shovel.