Let's start this tour with a view of the boughs weighted down between my neighbor's house and ours.
As far as you can see to the south (from one of our back decks), trees are snapped in two and power/cable/telephone lines are compromised.
Moving across the back yard from south to north, you can see all the fallen trees. What a mess!
This set of limbs blocks the southern entrance to the back yard.
Trees forty feet tall snapped under the weight of the ice from days of freezing rain.
This is the southern third of my back yard.
So much for the tops of those two trees!
More power line entanglement. It's every where!
Neighbors to the east lost the tops of their trees too.
Power/Cable/Telephone lines under stress.
My neighbor's (to the north) tree . . . the bane of my power existence.
One of the little trees touches the ground with it's heavy branches.
My northern neighbor's tree snapped his cable tv feed in short order.
But his power line remains intact, no longer in danger of damage thanks to my chain saw work.
But since the half of his tree which extends over my fence came down in a crash, our power line is pulled down to the ground.
This damage occurred while I was running rescue patrol for other family members without power. Ironic, eh?
It took me several hours to hack away at this tangled mess to free the power line.
The tangled web woven by the several days of ice storms.
You may wonder how a power line can flex this much? Follow me . . .
First you wrap around the eve, just barely clearing the satellite dish (whew)!
Then you rest some weight on the guttering and lower roof.
You yank the power mast and rain head as far as it will go without detaching.
And finally pull it down into submission; stopping just short of removing a wall section surrounding the meter.
If only the storms had let up for a little while. Alas, they lasted for three successive days building layer upon layer to trees in the front yard too.
The Red Bud tree lost this major branch only to lose two more before the next day.
The Sweet Gum tree lost it's top and several major branches. The following day it lost two more major limbs from the weight of the ice.
Even after a full day's clean-up and chain saw effort, plenty of work remains! (View from my office window)
And here we are once again at the edge of the house. Looks kind of pretty if you pay no attention to the rest of the carnage, doesn't it?
