Winter Weather Event - Jan 31, Feb 1, Feb 2

[AK9R]

This will be a wide-ranging and long-running event affecting thousands of people in Indiana. As such, it will present many opportunities for monitoring interesting traffic on our radios. Remember, though, that your first priority is your safety, your family's safety (including your pets), and protection of your property. Do not become a statistic yourself.

Here are some links I've been collecting which you may find useful:

Weather

National Weather Service Forecast Office Indianapolis:

Home page NWS Indianapolis, IN

Web briefing Web Briefing

Storm Blog Winter Storm Blog 1/31/11

Radar NWS radar image from Indianapolis, IN

Local Storm Reports (observations and damage) National Weather Service Text Product Display

Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Text Product Display

Road Conditions

INDOT Statewide Road Conditions Indiana Traveler Information

INDOT Indianapolis Area Road Conditions (primarily Interstate highways, includes links to INDOT cameras) http://pws.trafficwise.org/ipws/ci/

INDHS County Travel Status County Travel Status for 2/1/2011 08:46:29 EST

Power Outages

IPL Outage Map OutageMap

Duke Energy Current Outages - Indiana Residential-Duke Energy

Preparedness

Red Cross "Be Ready" program American Red Cross of Greater Indianapolis

If you find useful links that tell us more about how this storm is impacting our state, please post them. By the way, as I typed this, my lights flickered.

 

[AK9R]

Duke Energy is still reporting 39,000 customers without power. I think the highest amount I saw over the past few days was over 50,000. Currently, the hardest hit areas are Vigo, Monroe, and Fayette Counties.

Fire/EMS units in Hendricks County have been super busy today with injured persons and head injuries from folks falling on the ice and water rescues due to people venturing out on frozen ponds. Add to that several shortness of breath and chest pain runs, possibly from people trying to clear their driveways.

It was an interesting storm. I don't recall ever seeing anything like this one. At my house on the west side of Brownsburg, we had quite the variety of precipitation--freezing rain, sleet, and snow. My most enduring memory is from yesterday evening when I opened the garage door and found about two inches of sleet in the driveway. Moving it was like shoveling sand! Main roads in the county are passable with some slush and build-ups of ice. County roads are mostly glare ice with some drifting snow.

 

[K9WG]

I can ice skate on my front lawn.

Finally got the PU chipped out.

 

[Viper43]

Power was out here 2 1/2 hours last night but CIP got it going. Duke meanwhile takes forever to get to Hancock Co. Unless they impove responses they should be barred from the county. They have had 2+ hour response times for fires in the past....glad they don't serve my area! Last night was worse time wise for Duke.
Rush county also has major power issues, many there won't have power until at least Saturday.

btw W9RXR
Ponds + Ice = thinning the herd....

 

[W9NES]

I did not loose any power and I am very thankfull for that. Very thick Ice buildup on my driveway that I will have to spend 3 hours just to dig out so I can get both cars out of the garage. My son has been out of school for the past two days and will be out again on Thursday as school has closed .I hope everyone is ok and have made it thru the storm.

 

[KLH]

We were VERY lucky here in Knox County, we only had rain...
A few people in northern Knox county did lose power, and did have a little ice, but Vincennes never saw any.

 

[AK9R]

I'm not defending Duke, but I have to ask how many customers CIP has compared to Duke's customer base in Central and Southern Indiana. By the way, Duke is now reporting around 18,000 customers without power, so they are making big dents in the problem.

 

[W9NES]

W9RXR, What about Hendricks County Power? Did they not have customers that were without power during the storm??? source:www.hendrickspower.com

 

[AK9R]

Yes, Hendricks Power had outages. Luckily, I was not one of them (I am a Hendricks Power customer).

Oh, I see that Duke's number is down to less than 7,000 customers without power.

 

[usswood]

we (Vigo County) still have roughly 9000 plus without power....Duke said today everyone will be back on by Saturday at Midnight!

EDIT: Duke just advised they will have everyone back on by Midnight tomorrow night (Friday) woohoo!

 

[Viper43]

I'm not defending Duke, but I have to ask how many customers CIP has compared to Duke's customer base in Central and Southern Indiana. By the way, Duke is now reporting around 18,000 customers without power, so they are making big dents in the problem.

Two hours to respond to a fire scene on a night they have nothing else going on? Or there was a crash with wires down on a car. Person trapped, wires live. An hour to respond by Duke. In fact at one scene they ended up having CIP come out to fire scene and shut off power so firefighters could do their job safely. And CIP covers a lot more people than you think, they are gowing, and in three counties now. But even with limited staff their response times are pretty good. During the storm the other night they had all their crews out and by midnight had knocked out all but a handfull of outtages. By noon the next day they were working other companies jobs with one truck on call for their jobs. The point is that if Duke (and other utility companies)wants customers in an area they need to have 24/7 response. In most cases on the weekends especially, county can't even reach anyone at Duke. Thats not good at all for anyone involved. They are not the only company with this issues responding, Embarq is just as bad, and so is the gas company.