The following editorial appeared in the January 17 issue of the Bolivar Herald-Free Press written by Jim Hamilton:
We will someday sit around darkened living rooms or kitchen tables and, in somber tones, tell our grandchildren of the winter nights when rain turned to ice thick as popsicles, and trees popped like fireworks on the Fourth of July.
From this week forward, we will make legend of the storm that left us humbled by the irrefutable power of Mother Nature and tested both our mettle and patience.
Anytime from hence that younger folk declare the weather bitter, unbearable or unfair, we will chastise them soundly: “You call this bad? Why, ’tain’t much more’n a heavy frost. You should’ve seen the ice storm of ’07. . . .”
Then we’ll proceed to tell the tale of the worst ice storm to hit the Ozarks in most of our lifetimes—worse, even many will say, than the big freeze of Christmas 1986 . . . or was it ’87?
However we tell it though, our words will be lacking. We might aptly describe the sound of ice-laden treetops and limbs crashing to earth or landing on rooftops and cars—like skyrockets in reverse, first the explosion, then the ominous “whoosh.”
But no words will convey the stew of emotions we felt as we lay in our cold bedrooms listening to trees being ripped apart in rapid succession or the knots in our bellies as we viewed the landscape at first light.
Some folks compared it to a battlefield, others to the aftermath of a tornado. For my part, the trees stripped of limbs that littered the ground reminded me of pictures of artillery-ravaged European forests during World War I. The thick ice, though, and the unbroken trees and bushes bent in graceful arcs to the ground were even more other-worldly images.
It was a frightful landscape, awesome in the destruction revealed and glassy splendor that wrought it.
We cannot help but be humbled by natures—perhaps challenged, rather than brought to our knees—but still humbled.
Along with trees, electrical power lines came crashing down under the weight of ice and with them the order and infrastructure of our lives. Business could not go on as usual.
Our priorities changed overnight. Splintered trees mattered little.
For the past five days, most of us have been consumed by a singular passion to meet the basic needs of our families—shelter, safety, and nourishment.
My house has been home to four generations, and at times a kitchen and hearth for up to 11 people. I was never happier to have a wood circulator jutting into the living room and a camp stove with propane stored in the garage. I’m sure the situation at my house is not unlike that in many others as families and neighbors deal with our common friend and adversary—Mother Nature.
