Thankful for First Energy...

Yes, it's not often you express being thankful for having electricity but after taking a short walk today with as cold as it is outside, I had to express being thankful after reading this from CNN:

ST. LOUIS, Missouri (AP) -- Hundreds of thousands of Missouri and Illinois residents who have endured five days without power were still waiting Monday in dangerously cold conditions as temperatures hover in the teens.

An official with St. Louis-based Ameren Corp. said he expects it will be "several more days" before the utility can fully restore power.

"We've had some ice storms before. This one puts them to shame," said Ron Zdellar, vice president of energy for AmerenUE, who has worked for the company for 35 years. ( Watch downed trees that have cut off power and lineman who's dealing with it )

Ameren had restored power to 50,000 customers in the previous 15 hours, it said Monday. Despite those efforts, 296,000 customers in Missouri and Illinois were still without electricity.

It's possible if you have to do be able to get by with space heaters or other forms of alternative heat if your furnance breaks or you have to go without natural gas or even propane for a while but without electricity in this kind of weather it makes life very difficult. Especially since most homes do not have any type of auxillary heat such as a wood burner. That was the one advantage of the home we had in Maumee, it did have a fireplace. It wasn't the best as far as efficiency but during the blizzard of 78 when we had no heat or electricity it got us thru...