It could be another week before some Austin Energy customers get power back

[ga_girl]

4. Ice storms are catastrophic

My family lived in Atlanta during the 1973 ice storm. Power was out for about a week. You'd walk outside and everything smelled on Pine-Sol from the downed pine branches. Throw in the arcs as power lines came down or transformers failed and there was a surreal beauty.

We nearly lost the house in a fire. My little brother used a candle for lighting and caught his closet on fire. Fortunately, we had a large fire extinguisher that put the fire out. The local FD stopped at the top of a hill leading to our house and since they didn't see an engulfed house, they started to leave and had to be chased down. They didn't like walking down (and up) that hill in turn out gear.