This is far too common. these big old trees just can't stand up to wet roots and high winds. Oaks still have their leaves hanging on. Nature sure did a job of thinning out the weak and old.
It seems like the big maples fall over the easiest, no tap roots. Oaks do not seem to budge unless rotten or dead (and rotten) 'cause they have a tap root that goes 1/2 way through the Earth's crust, at least the old ones do. I have a white oak in my front yard that they tell me is older than the US; it is growing right through the power lines (the main lines on the street, not the power taps to my house- it is right on the edge of the sidewalk). So far, that thing has been about as stable as a mountain and with any luck at all, it will still be there long after we are gone. Brian
Two more loads tonight, thanks fishpol! While I was cutting the cherry up, the home owner came out and showed me another huge limb that was on their property. Looks like another load or two Then I got another load of oak from a nearby cemetery
I got my power about 1230 am this morn...Yay...I was fine and had water stocked up and ice etc. of course I have the wood stove but didn't really have to use it much because it was pretty warm...Portable radio, propane lanterns and plenty food...Some big limbs down but no damage at my place
And we just went off the grid again. Raining here and I think the water might have gotten into something it shouldn't have. No real wind but it flickered like 50 times in about a minute and a half. Weird.
I drove by that cherry after work to see if anyone grabbed it. You did a great job cleaning up. Glad you got it. I still have a lot of locust to grab
I finally had the first few hours this week of daylight me time today. I took a walk in the woods, the only carnage that I saw was the one tree visible from my house. Its a white oak, trunk is pretty rotten, but it wasnt dead. Good sized limbs, and about 26-28" DBH. About a hundred yard wheelbarrow ride from my backyard.I'll hack it up once the ground freezes.
This storm was a little unique (for New Hampshire at least) in that the winds blew out of the east...a lot of our typical storms have the wind coming from west and south, so a lot of our trees grow in that direction. 40-60 mph winds hitting everything from the opposite direction really did a lot of damage. I work for a power company here in NH and its been a heck of a week. Just pulling this off the top of my head, but from what Ive seen I would say something like 90% of our outages were tree related. Heres a shot of some of the damage my property sustained...oh the carnage! Seriously though I fared very well, one small pine came down that was dead anyway, otherwise nothing that Ive seen. Havent walked the property yet, but didnt see anything from the driveway/house.
I got my power back thursday-lunchtime. 84 hours. My hat's off to the "crew's" A good friend only 1 mile up the road is still out (different feeder line) Tomorrow night will be a week.
It seem's the coast line took the brunt of the winds. In my travels since the storm, all I've seen is spotty damage limited to a pole or 2 down. "News" reports all seem to have to travel to the coastal areas to get a more dramatic back round for their reporters to report in front of.
Up to 9 days now and still without power... Yes definitely a coastal storm which is why we took a pounding where we live. Criehaven took 92 mph winds, and while we only experienced 80 mph winds, it was enough. The thing was, the winds blew out of the south-east which is VERY unusual and why so many trees uprooted or snapped. It literally blew straight up Penobscot Bay and slammed us.
Wow, 9 days, what a nightmare. We were out 14 days during the ice storm in 98, the wire to house was down, so we were last on list, like you. But we didn't have 3 girls and a bunch of sheep, just one boy.
We have some cold weather coming in the next few days, almost winter cold. I hope everyone that's still "out" is powered up soon.
I had (2) but lost one yesterday so now I am down to one, but sadly a small one. I scrambled all day yesterday to get going and found a plug at Home Depot in Waterville, ran out there as everyone else were out of stock, and got going but limited. Lights and cold water really... I talked to the Generator guy and almost bought the last generator, a 7500 watt unit, but darn...you know how that goes, buy one and then drive home to a house with power on. He said they had 250 Generators though and sold all buy 1; 25 since Friday alone. I think I will buy a pto driven generator soon though. It just makes sense for us. I can get a 16 kw pto generator for $1200 and run everything. My bulldozer is sitting around doing nothing, minds well put its hp to good use.
We were 14 days during the ice storm too but that was standard lines, and not an individual house deal. We are very rural here and always the last to get it. During the ice storm after they got down to less than 500 people without power they quit saying so on the radio and TV and we were still without power. Now it is down to 6000 without power and we are still one of them. Our town is not even on the list of those without power, but obviously we are. Tree crews came through yesterday afternoon, but we do not need tree crews, we got them ourselves, we need line crews. Maybe I cut too many trees off the lines and got black listed by CMP? They really frown on people with chainsaws and skidders helping them out. They like that overtime you know? They write everything down as storm damage and submit a claim to FEMA when we all know half the poles were rotted and needed replacing from a maintenance standpoint. I know every power company does it, but it sucks when you are the pawn caught in the middle. Oh, slight correction; 4 daughters a wife and a farm.
Now is the time to get on the phone again and again and INSIST, if you aren't doing that already. Being stoic and sucking it up just lets them forget about you.
We got power this afternoon. It seems it was a clerical error. We kept putting down we were out of power, but the line crew supervisor knew they were here on Wednesday so ignored the work order. He said they have been chasing a lot of work orders where they get there and it was not taken off from when they fixed it earlier. When they turned on the transformer there was pretty much an aluminum meltdown. The wires had ripped off the smart meter and pulled up through the mast. That is why the breaker kept tripping at the transformer, they were grounding out in the mast conduit. The guy looked at my old (1950) meter box and asked if I had parts for it, And I was like, "Yep I got two spare meter boxes." he looked at me and said, "You do?" He said he has asked 100's of homeowners that and I was the first that actually had spare parts. I got two entire mast heads too, you never know when you might need a swap out.
