Well, dear readers, it's been a pretty wild and wooly weekend here in ole' St.Chuck. Friday evening a wicked winter storm hit us; not with snow, but with ICE! LOTS of Ice!! Then beginning at about 3am Saturday morning the sounds of trees breaking and crashing became common. First the snap, almost like a gunshot. Then as you held your breath, the thump on the rooftops of tree limbs falling. Our poor maple in the backyard lost many branches from its center. Fortunately, no damage was done to the roof or the pool. The oak and the sycamore surprised us by dropping hardly a branch.
All over town, branches came down, taking power lines and electricity with them. By 6am Saturday we had no power... and neither did over 100,000 fellow St. Charlesians! So we lit our ventless gas fireplace, dug out all our flashlights, oil lamps, and candles and hunkered down to wait for power to return. With the fireplace, we were able to keep the house in the 60's... but not all our neighbors were able to do so.
We greeted Sunday morning with the loss of our favorite Bradford Pear tree which snapped due to the load on its poor branches. The photos here are minus a full pickup truck load of logs that Gret and Leon will use for firewood once it seasons. With their help, we were able to clean up all of what you see here.
Good news arrived about 1 on Sunday afternoon when our lights came back on! Then, when their house reached the low 50's on Sunday afternoon, our best friends the Gaunts, who had no power until Monday afternoon, moved in for an 24 hr. stay. So we had fun playing with their grandkids Victor and Gwen which successfully took all our minds off the weather outside.
Presently it's late Monday afternoon and the temps are plunging into the upper teens. The wind is supposed to pick up tonight, but since much of the ice melted away late yesterday, we should be okay. Our only worry is if any previously weakened lines fall down. We are praying that doesn't happen. St. Charles County is slated to be back to full operations by Wednesday night.
We'll miss our pretty pear tree seen here just behind the pink crabapple last spring.
1 comment:
Holy Cow! That's a lot of damage! I didn't know the entire tree came down! WOW!!!! You're lucky it didn't land on the roof while you were sleeping!!! Glad you're safe! :)
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