Yesterday, at about 3pm, a quick squall of a rain storm passed through Huntington. It was a pretty good quantity of rain and it was accompanied by some strong wind. I didn't really think much of it other than that I had picked a bad time to go Coldstone for an afternoon snack. However, it turns out the storm was worse than I realized. Later that night, when Lisa was coming home, she called me at work (I'm working late - more on that in another post) and told me the powerlines on fifth avenue were down then, as she pulled up to the house she told me she couldn't pull into the drive way - our tree was in the way.
Hearing this I decided it was a good time to come home (it was about 9pm). So I cruised down fifth avenue and saw that I didn't fully understand what she meant when she said the power lines were down. In actuality she said the power poles - you know, those big wooden telephone pole type things - were snapped in half - five or six of them.
In amazement I continued on to the house and sure enough our big front tree was destroyed - half of it was laying in our front yard - the other half was leaning dangerously toward the house. Unbelievable! I was, to say the least, shocked. I tried to move the half that had fallen so that it was rotated out of the road but it was far to heavy. Then I went to Wal-Mart (only store open at 10pm) to find a chain saw but they don't sell any! Who knew there was something a Wal-Mart super center doesn't sell? When I came home Lisa and our neighbor Paul were outside looking at the tree and Paul was saying that he would cut it down for us. I wasn't too keen on this idea because I didn't want him getting hurt and I didn't want him to feel liable for our house if part of the tree fell on it. I wanted to hire a pro who was licensed. I left for work this morning and Lisa was going to try to find someone to take care of the tree. Lisa came home at lunch and there was Paul with his mini-chainsaw cutting away. He had taken a big part of the fallen half apart and was talking about using his ladder to cut down the rest of the tree. Lisa called me and I came home.
I helped Paul dismantle the tree the rest of the way and bought him a new refurbished chainsaw for his trouble. So now our only tree is gone and all that remains in it's place is a bit of sawdust and a stump. Last month the chimney was hit by lightning and this month our tree was ripped apart by heavy winds. From a purely dramatic impact the wind kicked the lightnings but. Here are some photos of the carnage. I'll stick a new photo, after tree removal, tomorrow.