Tornado Scrounge

[Brookwood]

Last January a tornado ripped up an area about 20 minutes from my house. The next weekend I went with a group to help with the cleanup and I was surprised that so much had already been done. At every curb there were piles and piles of trees stacked and waiting for the city to haul away. This was an opportunity for a unique and plentiful scrounge. Until then I had been buying my wood and was progressively getting tired of paying, waiting, and then sometimes getting it too green. So I bought a new saw and some gear, asked a buddy with some land if I could park some wood at his place, and then went to it. Free time and Saturdays I went to the area and loaded up. If it was pine or too hard to get I would just drive by. I cut rounds on site at 20†and loaded them into a 6x10 trailer until the fenders almost touched. I lost count of how many trips I made probably because it wore me out. I just stacked the rounds until later.

Found plastic pallets for $2, rented a splitter, and followed the stacking advice found on this site. It took 2 of us 9 hours over 2 days to split it. Only bummer was that my buddy, once he saw how big the pile was getting, said we needed to move it farther from the house. I almost died. We split and tossed into the bucket of his tractor and moved it to pasture to stack later. I planned to stack right there but hey it’s his place so I didn’t complain. It took me a day and a half to stack it and I’m pretty happy with how it all turned out. Each double stack is 22' long and 4 1/2' high. This was my first scrounge and storing up of wood. I’ll never forget my first. Just need to go back and get some more.

Here is a video of a helicopter fly-over of the damage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG4QAcj9Mxs&feature=related

 

[Oregon Bigfoot]

Very nice pictures! That's a lot of wood! I'm sure the people can't thank you enough for your clean up effort. Tornadoes are evil. I just got back from Georgia two weeks ago and saw some horrible tornado damaged areas in Ringgold and Fort Oglethorpe areas of NW Georgia, while visiting our daughter and her husband. I saw at least four different areas devastated between the border of Tennessee and Atlanta.

I'm burning wood right now I scrounged from the last tornado here in Oregon from December 14, 2010. Do a Google search "Aumsville Oregon Tornado". Our Oregon tornado was only an EF2, nothing like what you experienced with all the EF4's and EF5's from last spring.

 

[dougand3]

Welcome fellow Bamian. Great job on the scrounge. Impressive wood stacking! War Eagle!

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Nice work on the stacking. You might need to fasten that galvanized down a bit lest a strong wind take them to the next county. btw, we also use galvanized for the top and it works rather nicely.

 

[buddylee]

Tornado's are scary as heck and do a lot of damage but are great for firewood.

 

[Stax]

Great work man. Keep it up. Love your stacks.

 

[osagebow]

Great looking stacks, Good work!
- my heart goes out to y'all down there - my sister is an EMT in Dadeville, a real pretty area. Hope the bad luck is over for y'all weather-wise.

 

[ScotO]

Welcome to the Hearth! What you did was take a bad situation and did some good with it, I'm sure those people where you took the trees appreciated it! Like BS said, make sure you screw down that galvanized or it will not be there after a good wind. Great looking stacks and a great story with them.

 

[bogydave]

Nice score on the wood.
Nice score on the plastic pallets.
Great looking stacks. Should season well!
Good job. Nice pictures!

 

[Brookwood]

The galvanized has already taken flight. I plan to screw it down into a few of the splits since it already has holes. I was pretty tempted not to cover it at all. We get some pretty high temps in the summer so it will be interesting to see how it seasons, even with high humidity. The only thing I can't do is look at my stacks every day and enjoy my labor since it's not on my property.

I had some good conversations talking to homeowners who had damage. Of course, they all said take it all. In that kind of chaos, with crews and utility trucks everywhere, nobody cared where you stopped the trailer and what you cut. It was strange to be able to be so picky and just get what I wanted. I wish my wood ID skills were better. I could see the most differences as I was splitting.

FEMA said no to helping with funding so the cleanup is delayed. I need to get motivated again.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Good idea on screwing it down. We do some but also throw a bunch of uglies on top or even some large splits. We also don't get to look at our wood piles every day but tis okay. After doing this for so long it doesn't matter but that does not mean I don't get enjoyment out of seeing the wood piles. It gives great pleasure.