Now I know what it feels like to have your life turned upside down by a storm. I thought the 26" of snow in February was bad; the storm we had in the wee hours of Monday morning was unbelievable. It truly is amazing that no one was killed. My hometown of Quincy has been declared a disaster area, and many people are still without power. Thankfully, we were only without for about 36 hours. The weather people haven't labeled the storm a tornado, and I really don't know why. DH was watching out the window when it first hit; he said the limbs on the tree in our back yard were actually spinning back and forth, like the agitator in a washing machine. But you know what he was most worried about? That the windows would break and the cats would get out; what a guy!
We woke to our neighbor's trees in our yard, front and back. The one in the front yard missed our picture window by inches and was blocking our front door. The one in back is a towering maple; one of the biggest limbs (over 40 feet long and allmost 3' in diameter) fell across our yard, bringing down half a dozen other, smaller limbs with it. Our yard looked like a war zone. The biggest limb missed our shed by a foot. It took out our gazebo, half of my garden, I don't know how many yard ornaments and lights, smashed the fence, pulled the wiring from the house to the garage off the side of the house, pulled down the cable tv and telephone lines (which somehow still work!), and gouged ruts about 8" deep where it fell. Once you got 20' from the back door, you literally had to climb over tree trunks and limbs from one side of the yard to the other.
My understanding is that 18,000 people in the area lost power, including 90% of the local stores. DH and I drove all over town Monday morning trying to find me a cup of coffee; we ended up crossing the river into Missouri before we found a convenience store that had back-up power running a coffee urn!
Lots of people lost roofs and cars, as trees are down all over the city. I think we were lucky; it cost us several hundred dollars to have the neighbor's trees cut up, and we still have to pay an electrician to fix the wiring to the garage. We lost our gazebo and will want to replace it. (now, if my neighbor wanted to be nice, she'd offer to repay us---but I'm not holding my breath)
All in all, it's been quite a couple of days.
We woke to our neighbor's trees in our yard, front and back. The one in the front yard missed our picture window by inches and was blocking our front door. The one in back is a towering maple; one of the biggest limbs (over 40 feet long and allmost 3' in diameter) fell across our yard, bringing down half a dozen other, smaller limbs with it. Our yard looked like a war zone. The biggest limb missed our shed by a foot. It took out our gazebo, half of my garden, I don't know how many yard ornaments and lights, smashed the fence, pulled the wiring from the house to the garage off the side of the house, pulled down the cable tv and telephone lines (which somehow still work!), and gouged ruts about 8" deep where it fell. Once you got 20' from the back door, you literally had to climb over tree trunks and limbs from one side of the yard to the other.
My understanding is that 18,000 people in the area lost power, including 90% of the local stores. DH and I drove all over town Monday morning trying to find me a cup of coffee; we ended up crossing the river into Missouri before we found a convenience store that had back-up power running a coffee urn!
Lots of people lost roofs and cars, as trees are down all over the city. I think we were lucky; it cost us several hundred dollars to have the neighbor's trees cut up, and we still have to pay an electrician to fix the wiring to the garage. We lost our gazebo and will want to replace it. (now, if my neighbor wanted to be nice, she'd offer to repay us---but I'm not holding my breath)
All in all, it's been quite a couple of days.
