Bummer!!! Freezing rain took out all my "on the ground" candy canes that were connected to LEs. Next year I'm getting a spool of SPT and dong all the runs to the LE in such a way that I don't have a repeat performance. First year in a very very long time we had freezing rain (some people close by are just getting their power back on after a week outage!). I lost 2 nights due to no power myself (and I live close to two nuke plants), and about 1/4 of my show sequence was all about the dancing candy canes and aethers on the ground.
I feel for you, but hopefully the next two nights will be dry for you. Perhaps we need those tarps like they use in some ball parks and get a crew of neighbourhood kids to come flying out and roll it out when the rain hits....I might be on to something...if the tarp was clear, perhaps the show could go on rain or shine?
Joking all aside, you said it's the first time in 5 years that rain took you out....have you just been lucky with the weather the last 5 years, or did you do something different this year that didn't hold itself up well to water?