For those of you who live in the Midwest like I do or in the Northeast like I used to, I'm sure that you are no stranger to being pounded by nasty storms several times through the winter months.  A lot of the time, these storms end up just being a lot of snow or even freezing rain that turns into a slushy mess when it hits the ground.  Either of those types of winter weather don't seem to be too terribly bad, but I'll tell ya that the weather that we've been having around these parts for about the last two weeks has been a nightmare.  Rather than having nice pretty snow or dealing with the slush, we have had two huge ice storms over the past week that have essentially crippled the small midwestern town that I live in.  The first storm was actually pretty shocking in that the precipitation was actually ice rather than freezing ice.  In just a matter of an hour, the town ended up with over a half inch of solid ice covering anything that was standing still.  Looking out onto the roads, it looked like a ghost town, because no one was out braving the roads (thankfully).  Just when everyone thought that it couldn't get worse, the ice covered power lines started to pull from the weight of the ice and the power was out for several hours during the late evening hours...all during the coldest month we have seen since I have lived here.  Luckily the power company (for once) assessed the damage quickly, and the electricity was returned for the most part within a couple hours...although it did continue to flicker quite a few times during the night as I heard from my cell phone beeping every time the power went off and on.  This kind of storm can not only be crippling in terms of people being able to get around but it can also be a major cost to the town for prevention, cleanup, and recovery.  The newspapers in town said that the combined total of salt and sand that was used in a three county radius exceeded two hundred tons.  That seems like just an extraordinary amount...one that I can hardly imagine, even having grown up in the lake effect snow country of central new york.  I can only imagine what things were like in the smaller towns even smaller than the one that I live in that dot central and southern indiana.  I would imagine that it is particularly scary for the folks who live in the hilly areas to the east and south of here who don't likely have much money to allot to sanding and salting or even plowing the roads.  I can only hope that people know to keep themselves off the roads and safe in their homes until something can be done about the travel safety issues.  As if that first storm wasn't enough, everything melted a few days later only to have a second storm where all the wetness and slush just froze it was and then was topped with ice once again.  Unfortunately that is how we stand now...stuck once again and at the mercy of the ice and the daily temperatures that we hope will at least reach a degree or two above freezing to get things somewhat melted so that people can move and use their cars once again.  My car for one is stuck in the parking space where it is with no hope of gaining the traction necessary to move it for at least a few more days until the temperatures rebound above freezing for a long enough time.  If you are out there reading this and have been hit by these storms...please keep yourselves safe and warm by staying home and not braving the roads!!!