Freezing here in Aurora

[jeff]

Sunday night

We're one of the lucky ones in Springfield, our power is back on. We spent one night at the in-laws farm and one in a Branson hotel. Gotta love a hotel with the class to raise their rates for people in need. Paid $85 plus fee for the dog for one night, total $95. Checked the internet when we got home, same hotel : $50. I won't give the name of the hotel, but it rhymes with West Bestern. The girl at the front desk said everyone in the hotel was a refugee from Springfield. As for the storm, we lost two trees and too many branches to count. It looks like a frozen tornado went through our neighborhood. One of our neghbors had a tree fall on the power line to their home, ripped the wires out from the house, they'll be out for a while. We got lucky, the only real damage is to the privacy fence, which is missing about 4 sections, but overall nothing major. I was hoping something would fall on our ugly shed, but no such luck. We checked on the house Sunday, and there was a tractor-trailer in the local grocery store parking lot selling generators and chain saws out of the back of the truck. There were probably 50 people in line waiting.

[Phil Lilley]

Which Best Western... I'd like to know.

For the record, and I hate doing this, we would charge anyone $10 per night and if they couldn't afford that, we wouldn't charge anything.

People like the BW people need to be exposed... like gas gouging just after 911... it's immoral and just wrong.

[Phil Lilley]

Clarify my intent...

If I learned of someone who was gouging people in the lodging business in Branson, I would call the Branson chamber and report them. I would hope they would approach this business and tell them IF the media ever got a hold of this information they would have a field day with them and it would reflect badly on the town of Branson. Branson stepped up during the Katrina disaster and should do the same now. This might be an isolated incident but regardless, it should be confronted by someone with the town's best interest and with some authority.

[Wayne SW/MO]

Phil was there a power outage yesterday?

[Phil Lilley]

Not in this area- that I know of.

[Wayne SW/MO]

Thanks Phil, I've been out of town and my son in Fair Grove has a full plate.

[jeff]

Phil,

it was the downtown Best Western, near the landing. For what it's worth, one of the other guests said that they were charging "in season" rates, instead of the normal January rates. He claimed you could usually get a room at that hotel in January for less than half what they were charging. Since returning I've heard of many Branson hotels offering rooms at discounted rates, just hard to get that information out to people with no power.

[Phil Lilley]

They're rates have dropped... I called and they are $69.99 for 2 doubles.

[Quillback]

Power went out here at my house Sunday around 3 PM, just came back on 2 hours ago. They think they'll have power restored to the NW Arkansas areas that are out by end of day tomorrow. Still a lot of ice on the trees, but the limbs have stopped falling and I haven't heard anymore trees come crashing down in the woods.

[rainbow]

Ours went out Sunday and just came on an hour ago in Warren county. We have a good wood stove and kerosene heaters to stay there but no water with the well. We had some 5gal water bottles to get by. Mom had a big tree limb come through the roof into the guest bedroom and stop just over the bed. No one hurt with that one.