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Has there been any looting ?

Justing kidding of course. I feel for you. I lost my power here in NH in Dec. for 4 days. It felt like 4 weeks. It makes you appreciate the little things in life.

What still strikes me about the ice storm we had in NH/MA was how it brought out the best in people. Neighbor helping neighbor and being especially grateful for the electrical line crews that came in from out of state.

I work in the electrical section at the Lowe's Home Center here in E-Town, KY, so I have been dealing with this storm since the first day, and I have been very impressed with how my fellow Kentuckians have coped with it.

On Saturday, two of our local electrical contractors overheard another customer talking about hooking his generator up to his main panel box (a big no-no if you don't know what you are doing), so they grabbed a banquet table, set it up by my desk, and proceeded to spend the next three hours giving demonstrations on how to safely hook your generator to your house.

Near the end of the class, a little old gentleman (I don't know how old he was, but he had a WW2-Korean War Veteran hat on) came up and asked them how much they would charge to come out and hook his generator up so that he and his wife could have electricity. Big Frank almot looked insulted by this and told the elderly gentleman that if he would purchase the parts needed, Frank would be more than happy to hook his house up at no charge. A few hours later, Frank came back in and assured me that he'd gotten the couple taken care of and that they were curled up together on their couch when he left.

This is just one of many such stories I have from this storm. People are letting neighbors and coworkers borrow $1,000+ generators, folks who could get out and about checked on their elderly or disabled neighbors and brought them food, water, and heat, and electrical contractors volunteered their time to help hook generators up at nursing homes and medical buildings.

There hasn't been any looting to speak of, but unfortunately, there have been at least 5 deaths from carbon monoxide. Four were from generators that people had running in the basement or garage (some elements in their neighborhood were stealing them) and one was from someone using a barbeque to heat their home.

We lost power for 2-1/2 days and the house got down to 47 degrees. Our power came back on Friday evening, thanks to crews from Mississippi. The neighborhood cleared the streets of downed trees and someone used his plow to clear the street. There are homes around me where the fallen branches are 2 - 3 feet deep over the entire lot. I have some pictures of my immediate area, but unfortunately I don't know how to post them.

There are still about 100,000 people in Louisville without power. There are generators available now but there is a critical shortage of extension cords. You can't even find the cheap little six footers that you plug lamps into. We got some relief yesterday when the temperature went up into the 50's, but today it is only low 30's.

I have seen repair crews from North and South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Iowa.