the wind storm

In case you're wondering what 80 mile an hour straight line winds can do to a tree lined street, here's an idea. The storm only lasted 30 minutes or so and the winds were at the very front of the storm (it's called a derecho), so after those were gone we were out surveying the damage. The storm took out at least 5 of the older trees on our street. (Sorry for the poor photos, most were taken  with my phone).

And around the block...

Fortunately, we live in a great neighborhood (one where the neighbors bring brownies when you move in!) and the neighbors teamed together to have the trees chopped up in a matter of hours, allowing people to have access to and from their (powerless) homes (all four access roads/alleys were blocked). To bad none of these guys worked for AEP. I'm sure if they did we would have had power back quicker than 6 days.

Our house was unscathed (as was our super old and super huge tree out front).

Still standing (but needs a check up with an arborist just in case). 

C and I were really hoping that a tree would fall on the detached garage which desperately needs replaced or maybe a few of the old evergreens that need replaced would be uprooted, but no such luck. We'll have to take care of those on our own.