Hurricane Gustav

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JR.
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Re: Hurricane Gustav

Post by JR. »

We got a bunch of rain from Fay over last couple weeks. I am far enough inland that I'm not too worried about Gustov but despite being inland Katrina tore us up pretty good when the eye passed right over my house. The wires in the foreground were high tension lines feeding my own transformer. Now i share a transformer with two neighbors.
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One difference I notice this time compared to almost exactly 3 years ago is people are more proactive down in N.O. Before Katrina they were partying on Bourbon street, now they've already mobilized first responders. Also a lot of infrastructure issues have been addressed. We lost power for quite a while and when batteries ran down and generators ran out of fuel, cell towers went down and even emergency communications failed.

I now have a rain trench where that tree stood, connecting the runoff ditch along the back of my property and the front. My neighbor living right behind me has had water in their home from flooding several times in the last few years, but since I cut the trench last summer the front system has handled the overflow from the back... I wouldn't mind a serious test of my flood abatement efforts, and no longer have a house killer tree a few feet from my house, but i do have a stand of tall pines north of my house that are tall enough to reach out and touch me if the wind blows in the right direction.

I dodged a bullet with that huge cottonwood. It fell when the wind was mainly blowing east to west before the eye came through. Had it fallen later when the wind was blowing south to north after the eye passed, my house would have been severely trashed. It may be difficult to get a sense of scale from that picture. The root ball is taller than my roof, and it blocked the road running in front of my house. The winds appear to have been stronger in that later direction as I have some pecan trees still leaning at about 20' angle toward the north, so I feel lucky it fell when it did.

Amusing at the time there was a squirrel trying to take shelter in my carport and i chased him back up into that tree, while the leaning tree was arcing against the high tension lines running through it's branches, to the pole behind my house (which it snapped like a twig when it fell).

I am optimistic that even another direct hit to me will cause less damage than last time since many trees were culled out last time (about six on my property alone). I am not so sanguine about N.O. and the MS gulf coast. Those folks are stressing out with Katrina still fresh in their mind.

JR
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Crusty
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Re: Hurricane Gustav

Post by Crusty »

Roger has some guys who could take care of those pine trees for you, but you wouldn't want 'em. :evil:
Good luck to you, emrr, and everyone else down there. Looks like folks are really prepared this time out.

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emrr
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Re: Hurricane Gustav

Post by emrr »

No problems in the Carolina's; Louisiana is a 12-14 hour drive from here. We got 6-12" of rain last week as Fay blew back through. Looks like the 'H' storm could come in here next week though.
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JR.
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Re: Hurricane Gustav

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Yup.. NC is no stranger to Atlantic tropical storms.

There's several out there that will arrive and do their thing...

JR
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mediatechnology
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Re: Hurricane Gustav

Post by mediatechnology »

I have a pine that died earlier this year. I think I'll pass on having Roger's friends take care of it.

We are seeing a really unusual weather pattern here near Dallas. During Katrina the air smelt like fish and seawater - we are hundreds of miles inland. This time we've had alternating weather with it appearing like intense thunderstorms are imminent one minute to full sun the next. This has probably happened 20-30 times today. We're on the edge of a pin wheel with bands of clouds then clear. We could use some rain. We've had 22.91" here at dos pinos (now uno pinos) and I'm getting tired of watering the house.

Good thing JR that cottonwood decided to fall the "right" way. I just had a neighbor take one out that was probably 100 feet tall. The first 82 feet was $800, the last 8 feet another $800. The stump was huge. His tree could have taken out the entire house - in fact the root system may still.
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JR.
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Re: Hurricane Gustav

Post by JR. »

I'd be glad to send you some rain...

Here's a picture, about a year after I paid around $500 for two days of a back hoe and small dozer work rearranging my yard. There is now a rain ditch where my cottonwood was and you can see a couple inches of run off moving from my back ditch to front. It doesn't look like a lot of flow but it makes a huge difference as the back ditch is saturated and already overflowing. I wish all my plans worked as well as this simple ditch.
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You'll notice the pear tree is still leaning at a pretty severe angle. Not from wind, It was crushed by huge branches from the cottonwood, that extended well across the road in front of my house. The cottonwood would be standing just out of frame to the left of this picture

After Katrina there was some carpet bagger who offered to cut off the root ball for $300, not even remove anything. I hacked away at it for over a year myself with my small chain saw.... Finally called in heavy machinery to dig up the remains of the stump I couldn't burn and huge root system.

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mediatechnology
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Re: Hurricane Gustav

Post by mediatechnology »

My Mom's neighbor had a huge live oak blow over a year ago. The root ball on that one, which had grown in thin topsoil covering shale, was about as high as the house. It was essentially like the root ball was cast in cement. The tree punctured the roof and ceiling. They finally had to hire a large crane to lift the root ball out and truck it away.
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JR.
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Re: Hurricane Gustav

Post by JR. »

Yup trees can be a biotch... coincidentally in the photo I posted if you look straight out across the other road you see a yellow house trailer. About a month ago there was a frame house over there that they finally tore down after they tired of plucking trees out of it's roof. It got creamed by Katrina, and then creamed again in storms earlier this year,,, they just gave up and moved in a house trailer.

I have a stand of tall pines on my north side and they usually just shed limbs in a heavy wind. I have been waiting for the local logging industry to get hungry enough. Sometimes you can get them to take out the trees for free if they get at least a truck load. My only concern is they will probably need to be toopped, due to being only 50' from my house and with power lines around. But they are not a pending threat to me,,, they are closer to a neighbors house than mine,, I may need to do the right thing and be a good neighbor.

Pine will be easier to light the wick on than cottonwood. Maybe I can get Rogers tree crew to take them out :D

JR
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mediatechnology
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Re: Hurricane Gustav

Post by mediatechnology »

I think the pyrotechnic device is called blammo.
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JR.
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Re: Hurricane Gustav

Post by JR. »

I'm not familiar with blammo, but I'm sure my neighbors wouldn't appreciate me using c4 in town. :lol:

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