Ike's Visit

If someone had told me two weeks ago that a hurricane would roar through this part of the country, I would have thought they were absolutely crazy! Of course we do oftentimes get rain from hurricanes along the eastern coast or the gulf, but that's usually the extend of it. Then along came Hurricane Ike last Sunday. We went to the zoo last Sunday and were delighted with the slight breeze since it was much warmer and sunnier than had been predicted. On the way home, the wind really picked up speed and we were glad to be close to home by that point. The wind grew stronger and strong on the way home and was gusting pretty severely by the time we pulled into the neighborhood. Actually power to the traffic lights near our house was out, as was one side of the main street. By the time we arrived in our neighborhood, we noticed some fallen trees and were discussing how we thought our trees in the front were pretty sturdy, but were a little concerned about the large Elm tree in the back yard. We pulled into the garage and Joe took some stuff in while I took Chloe out of the van. Before Chloe and I got into the house, Joe was back saying he had good news and bad news. The good news: our house and Chloe's swing set were fine. The bad news: A good portion of our beautiful Elm tree had fallen - probably about 1/3 of it. It had landed just a couple feet from the house. Here are some pictures of it.


Another angle from across the yard.
A picture taken right inside our sliding door. Chloe's sand and water table sits at the edge of the patio and the tree just barely grazed it.

The wind gusted heavily for several hours after the tree fell, with some places reaching gusts of nearly 100 mph! We were a little concerned because one of the large branches had split in half, with half falling and the other half remaining in the tree. About an hour or two after we got home, Joe heard a loud snap and the other half of that branch came tumbling down, landing just two feet from the house! Thankfully, no one was hurt!! At that point, it looked like we had lost close to half the tree. We lost our power shortly thereafter and it was off for several hours. I can't ever remember losing power for that long before. We can't complain though. Our power returned on Monday and we did have water the whole time. At church today, we found out that there are still several people in the area without power!

Monday turned out to be a beautiful day, with sun and comfortable temps. Joe was working 3rds last week so he planned to get up early on Monday and get to work on the tree. From what I heard, it was really tough to find a chain saw to buy or rent anywhere early last week. So we were so thankful when a neighbor loaned Joe his chain saw. Definitely an answer to prayer! Since so many places had lost power, many businesses were closed on Monday so both of our Dads and Joe's brother were able to come over and help Joe with the tree. We are so thankful for their willingness to help us! Here are a few pictures of the clean up.



Piles of logs strewn around the ground.
Joe up on the extension ladder cutting down the now dead branches.
Another angle of the tree.
A pile of the smaller branches and twigs.

All in all, I think we lost about half the tree. We are praying the remainder of the tree continues to live and to thrive, but we just have to wait and see what happens. We had the smaller brush hauled away since our county did not offer yard debris pick up, and stacked up the larger pieces to use for firewood someday (maybe our next house will have a wood burning fireplace because they aren't going to do much good in our gas burning one! Here are some pictures after most everything had been cleaned up.

This is where one of the large branches broke off. On the right, you can see the edge of another one Joe had to saw away.
Another shot of where we lost most of the branches.
The tree as it looks now. It really changed the look of our backyard and we miss the beautiful branches that fell, but we are most thankful that we are all safe. God was so good to provide for our family's safety! After the storm was over, the weather reporters were saying we actually experience hurricane category 1 winds without the rain. If that was considered the power of a category 1 hurricane, I don't think I want to see any more than that! Please keep those who experienced the hurricane with both the wind and rain, especially those in Texas, in your prayers!