The Great Ice Storm of ’07

Here’s some photos from the “Great Ice Storm of ’07”

Here’s a view down the hill from the house as the sun rises. We were out early assessing damage we just couldn’t see when we got home last night.

Here’s looking at the wood pile (under the limb pile) and the barn.

Here’s where we usually park the cars. Amazingly enough, Richard decided to park his truck in the shed in case it snowed, and we left the car at the car rental place in Springfield where is was safe.

Here’s the main problem at the house in town. This tree is shedding limbs all over including on the neighbor’s garage.

Here’s looking at the same tree across our yard. Notice the dip in the chain link fence? That’s from a big limb on a tree behind me which Andy had already got cut up.

The damage can’t even begin to be shown in these photos. I’d say every tree in Polk, Dallas and Greene Counties have some if not major damage. Then, spreading out a couple of counties around is a good bit of damage. It’s like a tornado going through, except, rather than a path of damage, it’s everywhere. At least most of the houses weren’t hurt nearly as much as some are in a tornado.

Richard’s farm and my house in town faired amazingly well though. In one example of good luck, big limbs fell within a foot of one of Richard’s water hydrants and so there was no damage. As I said above, all the vehicles came through without a scratch. All the buildings are just fine. This is a lot more than many people have. We have electricity, though Jessica and Andy don’t in town. They have kept the water running in town, so the pipes haven’t (at least yet) frozen.

This afternoon we cleared a path to get the cars in and out more easily, and Richard cut the tree out of the bird dog pen and one off the fence. The fence damage is pretty daunting. We will just have to take it one tree at a time and might finish cleaning it all up by summer . . . or next winter maybe.

Right now we are watching thick snow-flakes pile up (up to an inch or so now with more coming) and wondering what that might mean for limbs barely hanging on? We are prepared for a power outage, however, so aren’t going to worry about it.

One thought does cross my mind . . . where’s global warming when you need it?

I took this photo at the fair in July (2007) and added it to this weblog entry to show the range of the ice storm. Our house is located about where it says 1″ in the darker blue (heavier ice) area of the map.