Wind damage

[Bill]

Had a bad storm Saturday night, got up in the morning to see an Ash tree 40 feet tall 4 feet from my deck. If it would of fell straight back it would be on top of my stove. The tree must of slowly tipped, because I had all the windows open and never heard a thing. It's very nice to have the trees close to the house, but it's best to keep them 30 feet from the house. We have trees fall every storm. It's not just the wind but lightening hits them quite frequently. Large dead branches can be heard cracking and if you look quick you can watch them fall. You can see metal on the ground, that's part of the stainless cable with all my bird feeders attached. Some got bent up, one was broken. My wife and I just said they other day hope we never get ash borers, we really like the two in the back yard.

The only good news is I have more firewood.

 

[Bill]

Bent over tree, 4 feet from the deck

 

[Bill]

24 foot branch hung up in another tree

 

[Bill]

This is a front look from the south side of the house.

 

[Harley]

Wow - looks like you have a little cleanup to do..... and and some nice wood for next year.

 

[northwinds]

I had a tree come down in the same storm as Smokey. The tree missed our garage by about four feet.
All I got was some lousy poplar out of it. Had a little bit of a panic because a real estate agent was scheduled
to show our house later Sunday morning. The Husky 350 made short work of the tree. The sawdust got hosed
into the garden. Voila. What tree?

 

[Bill]

I am a little concerned about this tree, it's still attached to the roots, is hung up against a big tree on a steep angle, and there is a smaller tall tree bent over holding part of the weight. I have the possibility of two trees springing up at me, getting my chainsaw stuck, and I may still hit the deck with it.

I am going to use my pole saw to cut the limbs that protrude out of the crotch and try notching the underside of the the ash top and bottom. Then stand back with the pole saw and try and cut it in half. All I can say is this is going to take all day and I can predict if something can go wrong it will.

 

[Bill]

I worked on the tree this weekend, it was a black walnut, not an ash tree. It was stuck in the crotch of another tree, bending over another large tree, and the roots were still attached on the bottom side. I don't like cutting trees under pressure, but low and behold it fell to the ground. It broke off the tree it was leaning on, and bent another. It just kissed my deck, no real damage, and it missed my septic tanks and the two PVC vent pipes by inches. The tree's roots were 15' north of the deck and the top of the tree about 15' south of the house, just to give you an idea of how long this tree is. The deck is 10 feet wide, so I am guessing the tree was close to 65 feet tall. I think I ruined my new saw blade, it was shooting sparks and turned black and started to smoke. The stump had stones, dirt, and who knows what. The base of the tree was really hard to cut. I sharpened my chain three times and it took two tanks of gas to cut her up. The gas tank on my Husky 455 is extremely large so it took me a while. The stump came out easier than I thought. I expected it to take 4 hours and have everything go wrong but I broke it off and shoved it down the hill.

 

[Bill]

The thinner tree on the bottom is the one it broke off.

 

[Bill]

Where she hit the deck and

 

[Bill]

All cut up

 

[Bill]

Root ball cut up, notice the rocks. The tree had very few roots on the north side, so when we got a strong north wind she feel to the south. Really nothing there to hold her up.

 

[Bill]

I use to run a stainless wire between the walnut that fell and an ash tree. So all my bird feeders went crashing to the ground. So I put up a new pole to hang the feeders.

 

[northwinds]

Did you do all that work in the rain? It's been raining hard here for two days. I wanted to go do some work in
the woods on Saturday, but didn't trust the footing on the hillside for chainsaw work. Rain predicted every day
this week in south central Wisconsin.

 

[jtp10181]

No kidding about the rain.... this the "Lake Windsor Golf Course"

 

[Bill]

I did it Friday, because it was supposed to rain for the next week. My power went out Sunday and many areas experienced flooding. A small town right by me called Gay's Mills is knee deep in mud and water. It's the area where they mainly grow apples. The Kickapoo river runs right through this small community. I had trouble getting home, highway 60 was closed, the Wisconsin River spread to the highway. Having to back track to the other side of the River, we stopped in Boscobel and had lunch. There were some homeless family's at the restaurant, car ruined, home flooded, and everything lost. I doubt they can get flood insurance in that area, or be able to afford it if they could. Very sad situation. I just called my friend and asked him to empty my freezer, the electric may be out for a week. No one knows how long. It's amazing the damage and destruction rain can produce. We had four inches in 24 hours. In Winona Minnesota they had flooding also, I heard they may have gotten 19 inches of rain in that area. My wife and I decided that when we retire we are going to install a generator, power outages happen on a regular basis in my area.

When I woke up Sunday morning, my wife was going to make meTexas french toast. I was going to have a couple cups of coffee, watch DIY network, keep an eye on the birds, and have a small fire. In reality I had water and a fire. Things don't always go like you planned. But the good news is I am on high ground.