That tree felled by the ice reminds me of my poor birch tree when ice storm hit my area in ‘96. Before the storm, my birch tree was rather stately looking. During the storm, it looked like that poor tree with ice on all limbs. Thankfully, the tree didn’t go into the street but it sure needed trimming after the storm lifted. The pics brought back all the bad memories including a week without power.
I couldn’t help thinking back to Katrina (I live in south MS). Similar damage to trees and power lines. The lo-res cell phone images really don’t do it justice - next time I’ll have batteries in my camera.
However, the worst part came in the Spring, when the meltoff from the mountains caused swollen streams, and the Willamette River threatened to flood downtown Ptlnd (not necessarily a completely bad idea, lol.)
Years ago (1997)the DC area got hit by an ice storm somewhat less than what just hit Missouri but it did something funny to my neighbor’s tree. It was an old White Maple, lightweight wood and probably hollow.
It was covered with ice and fell from the right side of his yard, between his pine tree and his house, hit his new truck and fell onto the top of my Kwanza Cherry Tree, smashing a few upper branches but they saved my new car.
We heard the crack of the tree coming down (had it happen to my old neighbor’s tree and my car years before 1997).
Then we heard the sound of “tinkling”. When daylight came, I went out and saw that the tree had fallen across the driveway and had landed in the top of my cherry tree, all the while dropping several hundred pounds of ice from around the branches.
I had to push-shovel it down the driveway into the street because it was too heavy to lift. Looking at the diameter of the ice on the one branch in this article, I can say that the damage from the weight of the ice has got to be immense. Good luck to the people out in Missouri.
To Al Gore: Missouri is the “Show Me State”. They want you to “show” them “global warming”, you big fat pig fraud.