The Big Blow, Part II

Well, our internet connection was just restored today. So, I've got a bit of online catching up to do. Thought I'd finish up the thought from the last post. This time with graphics to make it all seem a little more real.

This first one shows Tyson in the crater left by one of the big monsters that was blown over. Hard to see it from this picture, but the crater is at least 4 feet deep in some spots and approximately 12 feet across.







If you were to look 90 degrees to the right of where Tyson was standing, you'd see this. The tree goes right through the kids' bedroom. Only an hour before this tree fell through the roof, the parents had moved their children downstairs. They would have surely been killed had they still been in their beds.





This is a typical sight around the plateau where we used to live. Trees are everywhere and often they take the power and cable lines with them. Hence, we had no power for 7 days and no cable connection (or digital telephone) for 11 days. Certainly making us rethink our decision to go with digital phone service.













This was a fully functioning vehicle until the big blow. These folks live right around the corner from our old home. Amazing how much destructive power a falling tree can produce. The owners were in the garage when this happened and watched it happen. The garage is just in front of the van and the tree barely nicked the roof as it went down. It must have been terrifying to watch this 80 foot tree clobber your car. Later, when I went to clean up the yard at the old house, I saw that they had put christmas lights on the tree...

Further down the road, we see the humorous side of the destructive forces. The tree completely missed everything in the yard and the house, yet, the root ball completely lifted up the car parked next to it. Tyson figured you could just cut the trunk and the root ball would return to its place and the car released. And, that's what they did.



This is another view that gives a little better perspective. None of the onlookers viewed this particular scene as a tragedy, really... :)






Overall, we were just grateful that our homes didn't sustain any damage from the storm. Things could have turned out much worse for us. As it was, we simply had a bunch of branches and leaves in our yard. We could have been better prepared with the generator and gas in the cars, but that's another blog for another day.