I drove West to a buddy's house 90 miles away to take down a dead tree in his front yard yesterday afternoon. We had a bit of heavy rain there, but it's timing was good that we didn't get soaked. It took about 1 1/2 hr to get the tree down, cut up and cleaned up (there were 4 of us). I ran the saw, the others picked up pieces. Tony, the Dolmar 5100 worked great.
The tree was a dead Maple about 16" DBH, around 40'-50' tall.
So, on the way home I decide to stop at Cabelas and get a few lures. I'm just about done and the phone rings. It's Mom. "Do you still have a roof on your barn?" What do you mean? (She didn't know I wasn't home.) "Didn't you have the wind and rain? Our generator is on and nobody has power. There's power poles down in Plymouth (the nearest town) one is on fire, trees are blocking the roads and they said we had 80 mph winds." What????? No, I'm in Hammond, I'm not home. "Oh, well when you get home let us know if everything is O.K."
Aw crap. I hurry up thru checkout and head for home. About 30 miles due west from home it starts to look like a war zone. Nobody has electric, trees are snapped off and laying everywhere. Starting in Valpariso as soon as I hit US 30, continuing on thru Wanatah, Hanna, Hamlet and finally I see the electric on right close to where I turn off to my place. On the way home I call my neighbor and he says "This is the first time I've had to go to the basement. The canopies that I had out for the party are trashed, there's limbs down all over the yard and my neighbor to the west had a tree from his yard break off and fall across the street. I don't know about coming in from the east, but from the west you can't get past the tree." Luckily he said I still have the roof on the buildings. WHEW!!
The whole way home there are trees snapped off, emergency crews and people are out cleaning up, it looks bad...... I come in from the east and don't see much wrong. Smaller branches are down, houses are O.K., and that tree that was blocking the road is already cut and pushed off the road. We had 5/8" rain. The lake house had the top of a big black locust tree break off and just miss the neighbors house, but no damage there either.
It looks like we just got hit by the southern edge of the storm. There was a tornado that formed to the east of here, but no fatalities.
storm photos I drove on US 30 thru Wanatah and Hamlet to get to my place. The picture of the tree on N 600E is just down the street from my house.
Well, it's off to the lake house to do some cleanup.
