Hanna Makes Her Mark

Okay, September 6, 2008, the day that we lost our big oak tree…

It had been suffering – it had a significant lean, and there was a growing crack, from ground up at least about 12 feet, on the right hand side of this view.  It was 5 feet 4 inches across in one spot down near the ground – it’s a big big tree.

(Note:  I just went to some site that give a formula for estimating the age of a tree — it said for a white oak, multiply the diameter in inches x 5 = years old — according to that, 64 inches x 5 = 320 years old!!!)

Anyway, the tree guys said it would probably fall at some point, and that there wasn’t anything that could be done.  It was too dangerous to put guys up in the tree to cut it down, since it probably wasn’t stable and would support anyone.  He guaranteed us that it wouldn’t hit our house if it fell.  BTW, to the left in this picture is just a stream, and then the bike path (an old railroad right-of-way that’s been converted to a high-tension power line ROW and a bike path underneath it.  it’s the old W & OD rail line).

Well, around 3:30 today, we kept hearing noises….

More pictures tomorrow when the weather is nicer, but it took out at least 3 smaller trees as it fell – one was 18 inches across, one 14 inches, and the other was bigger but we can’t get into the middle of the mess to measure it.  At least two that were hit, their whole root ball just popped out of the dirt.    It looks totally astonishing up close, wait till we get better lighting and I’ll post more pics tomorrow. 

See the fence?  it goes all around the back yard – it took out at least 2 8 foot sections way over to the left – I haven’t been able to see if there is more fence busted up or not.   

So, we’ve got the big tree down, at least 3 others, some busted up fence, and we don’t know what else.  It did in fact miss the house completely (by a long shot), and there’s nobody else’s house that way at all. 

Funny thing is, we never really got that much wind at all today – a LOT of rain, but not much wind.  I guess the rain made the tree heavier, plus the rain made the ground softer and less able to anchor the roots.

Wowee Zowee.  We’ll be bringing lunches to work for awhile now, to pay for this cleanup.  Yahoo!!

 More pics tomorrow.  got some great ones

peace, y’all,

Be careful up the east coast, okay?

-Jude