Our neighborhood was unscathed but it’s a mess all around us. We have electricity and the local strip clubs have electricity but that’s about it. We had to drive across the county in the mess.
A really really nasty one just passed here, largely unexpected. One minute there were warnings for WVa, next minute we’re in the basement. New swingset may be toast, but the house appears to be water tight. We shall find out tomorrow.
We had a bad wind storm that came through town yesterday afternoon, no lightning or thunder, just wind and record breaking temperature (103 degree F). A large limb broke from our Bradford pear tree in the backyard. Luckily it didn’t take down our utility lines in the process, but a good part of the city was without power after the storm. This morning I need to see if I can cut up the fallen limb with the bow saw. There are some broken limbs that are leaning against the power line. I will probably need to call the utility company to remove those. We had another thunder storm early in the morning, but my wife says that she didn’t even hear it.
The Governor declared West Virginia a disaster area (no laughing!). There are an estimated over 500,000 people without electricity in a state with less than 1 million people. How my neighborhood is untouched is beyond me.
Who else had nasty storms the last couple of days? Britain.
We’ve had some of the worst flash-flooding we’ve seen. A man was swept away and killed only about 40 miles from me. In a slightly different direction, and almost as close, hailstones the size of golf balls and bigger smashed garage roofs and windows and damaged cars. There are several major rail lines still out, power is out over a fairly large area of the North-East and up in Scotland the route between Fort William and Glasgow (one of the important routes to the Isles) will be out until 3 July at least after a freight train de-railed when it was blown over by high winds.
We were hit pretty hard around 12:30pm. It scoured our vegetable garden, ripping some of the plants right out of the ground. There were two deaths in the western part of the state due to falling trees. We lost power two times but it came back which is unusual for us. It’s going to be bacon today, 100°F+, so we are grateful for power, likely will break historical temp. records today and tomorrow. There are about 3/4 of a million outages state wide.
I have to get out the chainsaw to take out the trash. Literally.
About a 6 foot diameter tuliptree came down next door, fell right between two houses. The beech that it fell on split and appears to have gone through the roof of my backyard neighbor. Next door neighbor has a limb through the roof of his garage and one I’m gonna have to cut off of his deck.
AFAIK, no deaths. We have power, but over half the area is without, including half the pumps of the water company. I’ll count my blessings.
That’s what I was worried about last night, our neigbour has a dying 150yr+ old tulip poplar that is a huge double tree with one trunk ready bisect our home and one to bisect their home. I tried talking to them about it but they don’t want to believe it’s not going to live. They just spent a tidy sum to put a modular concrete block wall around it. It’ll be completely dead by summer’s end unfortunately.
I worry about large trees near the house. It was expensive, but I had two old trees removed that worried me. I could see what was going to happen, and every storm that came through I kept my fingers crossed.
There is a large mostly dead tree right near the street two doors down from us. Students rent that house, and, naturally, one of them has their nice car parked right under the tree. If my dad were alive, I can hear him ask them if they took one of their stupid pills. I wouldn’t say that, but I would think it.
Here in the glorious Home Counties, we remain unscathed. I can’t help wondering what horrors are in store for us. It’s not just the routes to the Isles that are out of commission: There has been serious flooding near Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, and the train routes between England and Scotland are down. One of my colleagues was up in Edinburgh this week, and, finding there were no trains from Edinburgh, took the train to Glasgow - only to find there were no trains from Glasgow either. Last I heard, they were putting him on a coach.
Belfast was flooded too, and Youtube had (briefly) a video of a bunch of NIPS (sorry, Norn Iron Police Service? That can’t be right. Must be PSNI) stranded on top of their Police Landrover in West Belfast. It seems to have gone now. There is another wonderful video of some English (I think) cops driving headlong into a flood and having to get out and push. Hubris…
Aye, thanks, Denny. That contains a clip of the original video, which must have been removed when they sold the rights to UTV.
I love the ads in that. Absolutely fantastic. Was that last one an advert for wigs, by any chance?
Heaven knows. They shift 'em around every time you watch.
Major. Power is out all over town. We got ours back after 24 hours…48 for internet/tv/phone service.
The good news is, I’ll probably have about two cords more wood by the time I’m cleaned up. The bad news is, it’s all poplar. Actually that’s not all bad; poplar’s good for rekindling the stove in the morning.
Got out for a little while today. It’s incredible. Three trees fell in the yard of the neighbor diagonally behind me (none of them from their own yard). They lucked out and only have damage to their rear eave and one hole in the roof. Next-door neighbor has a limb through his garage roof. A house one street over took a direct hit from a 100-year-old oak and is toast. On that block there are two trees fallen across the street, the power lines are down the whole block. I’ve never seen as much brush down after a storm.
We are minutes away from another storm. The Governor of West Virginia declared that non-essential State employees do not have to go to work tomorrow. There is a difference of opinion on who is essential. I know I’m not essential. The day that people are relying on me, we got problems.
Opposite problem in Alabama. We’re in a drought and hit 106 F yesterday. I’m actually on the eastern coast of Florida visiting friends and it’s cooler here than at home.
A tree that’s dead and stark is likelier to survive a big wind than a living tree with all of its sails aloft. Bare branches offer a lot less resistance to the wind.
My wife and I weathered the storm at the Sugar Shack (a roadside drive in restaurant) - we arrived just in time to get a Shake before the electricity went out for good, and received our food just in time for the worst. We heard the the storm coming, and soon left the porch for the inside dining room. Sounded like we were in a popcorn popper, visibility was zero - truly we could only see inches outside the window. Rain, hail, leaves, twigs, branches, garbage can lids (we didn’t see these but they were missing when things cleared up) all went flying by horizontally (winds were recorded at over 80mph). Somehow it wasn’t too frightening, though it probably should have been. A tree fell next to the restaurant took out a fence and knocked over a bird house but missed both the owners cars. When the four of us ventured out the rain was still coming down pretty hard and it was rainy but the hummingbirds were back at the feeders!
We had about 15 mile drive to get home but had to drive 55miles to get home, 4 false starts (blocked roads) and dodge numerous trees and downed or low power lines and with the gas gauge pressing empty and no stations with electricity to pump gas! We saw countless trees uprooted and damage to houses and parked cars. We got home to no power - our whole town had no power.
AEP (the power company was promising electricity to be back by July 4th midnight but it came back this evening, a pleasant surprise. At home just have a few branches down causing no damage, a couple slates off the roof - seriousness yet to be determined and our vegetable garden a little wind swept, but no serious damage. Our freezers stayed frozen - life could be a lot worse.