Windstorm damage around town

[Burnham]

We had a pretty boisterous storm front blow through on Sunay afternoon, lots of trees down which left about 120,000 homes without power. Most were back up by Sunday night/early Monday morning. Ours was restored Monday afternoon, and a few scattered locations are still being worked on. I came through fine, didn't lose any, but all around there were roads blocked, etc.

Around the little town I live closest to, some really big Garry oaks came down, and some firs as well. It's really a shame to lose the oaks, they were truly nice specimens, large and not too common hereabouts.

As you can see from the pics, one had a compromised root system, another had bad heart rot. The Doug I show probably had root damage from construction, though that house and tree have lived alongside each other since the early 80's.

 

[Burnham]

I can't figure out how to delete an attachment...I didn't mean to post two pics of that fir on the house, but can't seem to get it gone now...

 

[stig]

I thought I was good at trees, but Garry oak has got me stumped.

Latin name, please.

That second one looked like it was about ripe to go.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Big trees next to houses are a NO NO, IMO.

 

[Burnham]

Quercus garryana, Stig. Also called Oregon white oak.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quercus_garryana

 

[Burnham]

Big trees next to houses are a NO NO, IMO.

Almost impossible to achieve here, and I wouldn't want to live in a place with no trees. I'd rather accept the risks.

 

[sawinredneck]

What a mess!

 

[SkwerI]

Burnham, I think you can delete the extra picture by editing your post, bring up the 'manage attachments' window and uncheck the little box in the corner of the picture you want to remove.

As far as the trees, we almost never see oaks snapped off at the trunk like that unless they are quite decayed. They will uproot first. Damage like that would indicate a tornado if it were in this area. Nothing else can generate enough force to snap a big tree like that.

 

[sawinredneck]

I've seen it here, Brian, sometime we get what they call "straight line winds", some up to 90mph. They can, and have, left more carnage, in a smaller area, than a medium tornado.

 

[gf beranek]

Storm damage scenarios abound. Both exciting and dangerous.

 

[sotc]

Was definatly some high wind. Fir hit the house so hard the limbs all broke off unless the winds got them after it was laying down. I didn't realize the storm went as far North as it did. Wind come from the North there too? Everything here was primarily laid out to the South

 

[Burnham]

Almost directly from the west, Willie.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Carnage for sure. Some saw men will be busy for a while!

 

[squisher]

Gnarly!

 

[gf beranek]

Storm damage work opens doors to do things in our work that we would never be able to do otherwise. A few times I got the thumbs up to bomb the standing infrastructure. Safety first, and the wires came down with a single back cut. Kind of feels good to be able to do that once in a while, least with a blessing anyway.

 

[Peter]

Hell yeah!

Few years ago I took down a big poplar that had partially windblown onto a garage. Building was a write off so I was able to ring the stem down and push the chunks straight through the garage roof. Saved trashing the lawn and was extremely satisfying!

 

[Al Smith]

Quercus garryana, Stig. Also called Oregon white oak.

When I first looked at the picture I had thought white oak .That one was shall we say a little over due ,kinda rotten .

 

[gf beranek]

Heart rot and breaking over in the wind. It's a repeated scenario in most storms.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

See a lot more of that with the Black Oaks here than with the Garry. I wonder if the dryer climate here may help with that.

 

[pete mctree]

Storm work has provided me with some of the most challenging scenaios I have ever worked. Especially street trees- they seldom produce good root plates and love to partially windthrow