Georgiann Potts: Weather havoc dampens Christmas festivities

After what had been an unusually busy December for us, we were looking forward to the time between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day. These days were to be rare, “unscheduled” ones during which we could do anything — or nothing at all.

While we weren’t expecting a white Christmas, we did have fair warning that an unusually cold Arctic blast was headed our way over Christmas weekend. As usual, we took that warning seriously and planned accordingly.

Even so, our plan failed because of one very small, very innocent-looking copper pipe... — GP

The Christmas 

Deep Freeze of 2022

Weather forecasters began speaking about the possibility of unsettled weather over the Christmas weekend at least a week before, telling us that our region was likely going to experience colder temperatures than normal. A few days later when they began forecasting high winds to accompany the cold snap, most of us began to pay closer attention. Then when they suggested that low temperatures that weekend could reach 9 degrees with a wind chill factor lowering it to -4 degrees, everyone got in high gear. This was going to be a “significant weather event” for certain!

Along with forecasts, meteorologists offered tips on “winterizing” homes. Social media shared much the same information. For the first time that I could remember, we were being advised not only to slow-drip our cold-water faucets, but our hot-water faucets as well. 

We made checklists — cover outside faucets, open kitchen and bathroom cabinets under sinks, turn heat on to keep the interiors of our homes warm, bring in our pets and plants, and look out for our neighbors. 

For some, these warnings were reminders of burst pipe “adventures” from their past. Vickie Boatwright escaped calamity this year, but not last year. “Pipes on a 3-way connector all burst at the same time,” Boatwright says. “Of course, it was two o’clock in the morning on a Monday! I filled a couple of buckets with water and then we shut the water off for the entire house. The next afternoon it was repaired.”

For others, including Jim and me, these warnings portended catastrophe. We should not have been surprised when calamity happened, but we were.

Christmas Eve 2022 

It was a cold, lovely Christmas Eve. After lunch, we left our lake house and drove to Monroe to check on our home there. Days earlier we had done the proper winterizing, but because the temperatures were going to plummet even further, we wanted to take one last look. We walked through the home and around the outside, making certain that everything that needed covering was covered, faucets were dripping hot and cold, cabinets were open, the HVAC systems upstairs and downstairs were on and heating, and that the garage utility sink’s heat lamp was on. Satisfied that we had done all that we could, we drove back to the lake house and began preparing Christmas dinner.

It is our habit now to have our Christmas dinner and open presents on Christmas Eve. This was especially important this year because Christmas Day was on a Sunday. I was doing the finishing touches on our meal preparation when a dear neighbor sent me an urgent text. The postman for our street had told her that she needed to contact with us because “water was pouring off our front balcony”. 

It isn’t every day that one gets a text like that. It gets one’s attention! We called the handyman who works with Jim (and lives in Monroe) and told him what we knew. He said that he would be at our house in five minutes and to cut the water off. We thanked him and told him we were on our way.

When we arrived about 30 minutes later, he told us that it looked “pretty bad” inside. We went in and discovered that he was right. I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say that we now had a new water feature in our library downstairs — water was literally pouring down through the HVAC vent in the center of that room. Our master bedroom upstairs was flooded, and the water was rapidly seeping downstairs flooding our library and dining room as well.

There is something “other worldly” about standing in water in your library, seeing your Christmas tree dripping in a nearby corner, and wondering how much more damage the water will do. Jim got our handyman to help him move furniture and roll back rugs off the padding to try to lessen the damage. We contacted our Allstate agent, ServPro, and a plumber. Our agent filed the claim, but the soonest anyone could get to our home to work would be the Tuesday after Christmas. Having done all that we could do, we returned to the lake and warmed up our dinner. Presents weren’t opened until Monday night.

There Were Others

While at that moment, it seemed as if we were the only ones dealing with this kind of emergency, it turns out that there were others. For Judy Bennett’s son, burst pipes happened in his new home even before he moved in! There was an inner valve problem. The home’s previous owners hadn’t turned the valves back to “off” when they winterized the home. “This is something every new homeowner should have checked before moving in if the home has been winterized,” Bennett explains. “We called ServPro and they came out immediately to strip out Sheetrock and the wood floors. It was a mess.”

For Mary Katherine Berry, the catastrophe was a matter of fire, not ice. Lightning struck her security system. When she opened her transformer box, she saw hot, burned wires. “I called the fire department. I cannot say enough good things about the three who came!” she says. “They were absolutely wonderful. A new system was installed yesterday.”

Sue Nawas had her “adventure” when a small pipe outside of her house burst on Christmas Day. It was one she used to bring water to her backyard plants. Because it was outside, she was able to turn off the water valve to it without interrupting the water supply to her residence. That meant that the water was still running so Christmas was not a disaster! She did have to wait several days for the plumbers to come because they had so many calls that they had misplaced her number. Because hers wasn’t an urgent matter directly impacting her home, Nawas carried on!

Even some of those traveling that cold weekend were not spared. Roger and Paula Walker arrived in Shreveport around noon on Christmas Eve and that city was already reporting frozen water pipes bursting. As a precaution, they bought as much bottled water as they could find to last the seven of them for several days. “On Christmas Day, a neighbor called and informed us we could get water for the commodes from their swimming pool. That offer was appreciated because our water supply was beginning to dwindle,” Paula explains. “We boiled water to wash dishes, pots and pans, bought paper goods for use at meals, and were not able to bathe — but did get to brush our teeth using bottled water.”

Bleak, Barren Landscapes Hold Hints of Spring

There is something depressing about the bleak, barren landscapes of January and February. After this Christmas freeze, our plants were knocked back even further than usual. Everywhere seemingly dead plants look freeze-burned and drab. Still, if one looks closely, there are signs of spring in that ruin.

“Interestingly, while I was trudging around looking closely at my azaleas and some other plants, I noticed some tiny green emerging,” Mary Kathryn Berry says. Some say there are tulip trees in bloom in certain places in Monroe, and one can almost see buds beginning to form. Are these reports true, or just wishful thinking?

On a day when I was thinking about what had happened to our Monroe home and to so many others we knew, I was walking about our lake patio looking over the frozen plants in pots there. To my surprise, in one I found a number of green shoots pushing up nestled under a dead asparagus fern. As I pushed the fern fronds aside to see the shoots better, I discovered a hyacinth hidden underneath presenting purple blooms! There is no way to explain just how much joy that tiny, but bold, little bloom gave me on an otherwise drab day. I had planted it in April 2022 along with a group of other bulbs that my daughter-in-law, Roxanne, had given me for my birthday, hoping that at least some of them might grow.

American novelist Ernest Hemingway once wrote, “When spring came, even false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest.” Perhaps my little hyacinth was only a marker for a false spring, but it was still beautiful and encouraging. When I saw it, all thoughts of present problems disappeared — replaced by happy thoughts of days (and flowers) to come.