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For my friends in California, who'd probably never seen snow in real life. This is a true story, and is being written as the ice storm progresses.
Update: Sorry the rest of the story is so late. The electricity, phone, and internet got turned off. Details in the story.
Chapter 1: Tapping on the Glass

A peculiar sound catches my ear. Something constantly tapping on the glass of the window behind me. It looks like rain, but rain never makes that sort of noise. School cancellation announcements roll across the bottom of the TV screen. My county is one of them. I cheer for a moment, but a victory short-lived as all the local channels start to fade into static.
I sit in silence for a moment, listening to the sleet falling outside. The icy raindrops sound like little kitten feet rushing across the glass. Or maybe my Language Arts teacher's manicured fingernails tapping on her desk with impatience. After a while, I take a shower in the unusually cold water and fall asleep, the sound of the sleet a lullaby.

Chapter 2: Winter Wonderland

I wake up to the sound of a fire truck. Or is it an ambulance? The sound slowly fades as I try to figure it out, but returns moments later. I rush to the window to see. It was a fire truck, with the much smaller fire rescue ambulance behind it. They stopped where one of my friends used to live, and drove away in silence minutes later. I looked for smoke, for people rushing out of the house. But there wasn't even a flame. What could they be doing there? I glance at the clock; 7:21 AM. Back to sleep.
I wake up at about 10:00 AM. Lazily getting out of bed, I trip mid-step in the hallway, the light from the living room window hitting my unadjusted eyes. The sound of the car's engine was coming from the garage door.
"Weird." I thought, and walked over to the garage to find my dad fiddling with the chains of the car's tires.
"Dad, what are you doing?"
"Putting chains on the tires so we can go to the doctor's appointment."
"What!? I'm not getting in that car in this kind of weather!" I replied in surprise.
"Well you're gonna have to. And close the door before the heat escapes!"
I closed the door and mumbled to myself "Well who's gonna make me go?"
I looked outside the window. The trees, power lines, and basically everything was covered in ice. Icicles hung from the roof ledge and the tips of dead leaves. Even power lines were completely coated in ice. But they weren't looking heavy just yet. Everything looked like a winter wonderland. Icicles clung to everything they could cling to, the dead grass a melting ice skating rink, the tree branches turned icy white.
Nothing worked today, even the clinic, except for, maybe, the emergency department. A huge fallen tree limb lay in the grass. Half of a tree lay in the road. Everything looked like it was gonna crash all around me. There were constant sounds of falling trees and crumbling ice around me as I walked in the front yard, taking pictures and videos of everything that was covered in ice. My fingers went numb and my nose runny. I went back inside, to clean my rain-splattered glasses and warm myself.
Chapter 3: Dark and Cold
I wasn't in the house for 10 minutes and the electricity already blew. I thought it might only be off for two hours, but instead, it was off all day. We went to sleep in our clothes because our heater was on electric power. Noises of falling trees, some in my own back yard, kept me awake for about half the night.
The next morning, I wake up and look outside the window. There was snow everywhere. I look at the clock. Blank. Electricity hasn't came back yet. And I found out why. That loud noise in the back yard was half of our huge oak tree falling to the ground, knocking down our power supply with it. We couldn't get any electricity even if the rest of the city could.
We went driving around the town. Everything was closed. Even Wal-Mart! And when Wal-Mart closes, that tells you something is terribly wrong. We went to Evansville to stay with our friends, but trouble seem to follow us where ever we go. Their power was out.

To be Continued...

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