Now That Was A Storm

Wednesday night we had a heck of a storm roll through this area.

When I left for work on Thursday, I could see downed branches and a lot of leaf litter all around. All in all, our neighborhood wasn't hit too hard. We lost power for just long enough to mess up all of the clocks but we were otherwise unscathed.

Then, I went to work. What a mess I was driving into! Or not quite driving into as the road was actually closed do to the damage.

The property across the street from where I work is full of very tall trees. During the storm, part of one of these trees fell taking out a telephone pole across the street, a car that was driving north on the street and a telephone pole on our side of the street. Trifecta!

When I got to work, the limbs in the street were just being taken out of the road but the car that was hit was still there. It took them two days to replace the two telephone poles and restring the wires but the best part of all this is WE didn't lose power! Well, I think we lost power for a little while during the night but by the time I got to work, power, phone and internet were all up and running. I've spent a day at work before manning the phones with no power. It was NOT fun!

After I got my day started, I took a minute to go outside and take some pictures. Because I could only sneak away for a minute to take the pictures, I did the best I could. The shadows were not cooperating with me!

This one shows the telephone pole on our side of the road at the left of the picture with the broker part of the pole across the bottom of the picture.


Another view of the same pole, with the broken part on the left in the shadows. And, since you can't read it, the white looking tape going across the picture says something like "DANGER!" and something about electrical danger. Who doesn't love a good electrical danger sign?



This is the car that was hit in the road. I don't know about the driver of the car since he/she was gone by the time I got there. Just the clean up crew was there. Note the downed wires in the foreground.



I hope the driver is ok.

What scares me the most is the tree that lost the branch that caused all of this. I don't know if this was hit by lightening or if the branch just came off in the wind. But the aftermath of the broken branch left this:


There really doesn't look like there is much left to this tree. As high as this break is, there is MUCH more tree above it. That's the part that worries me! Is this gonna come down? Is this gonna come down right on my head?


Backing up a little more . . .






I don't know how tall this tree is but it looks to me like it would reach the building where I am. As a new accessory to the safety shoes I have to wear at work, I should add a hard hat to my ensemble. I am such a trend setter.