Monday, December 23, 2013

Ice Storm Damage

What a big mess.


We have broken branches everywhere.

Where do you start?  For now we are clearing just the driveway.

When do you start? You have to wait until the ice melts off the branches. If you try and trim the trees before the ice melts, it will just break more branches.

But here's the worst part.  These pines are ruined.  The first photo is of a tree that was comprised of three trunks with a raised canopy.  Two of the trunks are broke and the third is severely bent.
The second photo shows a upright juniper that hid our gas meter.  It's laying on it's side and hiding part of the driveway.
The next to last photo shows the three trunked pine that is destroyed.
This was a perfectly straight and perfectly shaped pin oak.

Edited.......A transformer in the neighbors yard caught on fire last night and now we are w/o power.

5 comments:

  1. Oh man. What a bummer. I'm so sorry for all the limb loss and the resulting extra work. Is there anything you can really do to prepare for or minimize damage from an ice storm? I'm clueless here in Sacramento-- we just had a stretch of freezing weather, but nothing like what you get there!
    Stay safe and have a lovely Christmas!

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  2. You know the only way you could minimize the damage is to thin out the smaller branches to help eliminate the added weight. But then that only works so much.

    Also we were lucky that it wasn't windy. The big news channels aren't covering damage in Michigan. Michigan had more electrical outages than any other state. 500K households basically along the I69 corridor. With Genessee county (mine) being the worst. Some people will not have power until Saturday. My mother lost her power, my son, my cousin, and I think, my sister all lost power. We didn't but just 1/2 of a block down the street is without power.

    Have a great Christmas.

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  3. Ice really does a lot of damage. At least you have power. Last year we lost it for a few days during the blizzard (after losing it for a week after the hurricane) and it was cold. I think I was more worried about not having coffee though.

    Thankfully, you're safe.

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  4. Oh man. That's huge! Yeah, no news coverage that we've seen. That's crazy. Is everyone camping at your house?

    We don't have the extreme winter weather that you do, but we do make sure all the propane tanks are full for the bbq, should we need it for cooking, and we have a small generator if necessary. Oh, and lots of quilts!

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  5. That's a real bummer! We thought that our pines had some damage, but looking at yours, we got off easy.

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