We awoke up Sunday morning to find that the second largest tree in the backyard had indeed become uprooted and was wedged between two others at the edge of the yard. The upper canopy was also entangled with about five to six others. The Hickory that was next to it also was going to have to come down as well, its roots were all entangled with the large oak. We also had another uprooted tree at the edge of the back property line that was leaning onto another tree. Not to mention the limbs that had fallen out or were hanging on the tree in the front yard.
We had a couple of tree guys stop by the house during the morning hours to give us estimates on getting the trees down. One who was local gave us a fairly good price; and we even tried to go with them asking them to put together a contract. They told us they'd be back in an hour and they NEVER showed back up or even called. (We've passed their house several time since and there they all are working on cars or motorcycles in the garage. Obviously they didn't really want the work.)
The gentleman we did finally go with was from South Carolina - Came right out, wrote up the contract, showed up when he said and did a SUPER job. The tough job for them was to get the wedged tree down. It was really stuck between the oak and holly near the end of woodpile. It was a real thing of beauty to see him top one of the large trees and it just swung harmlessly passed the neighbors porch. Took some real talent to do that. It took them two days to get all the trees down, cut up and limbs hauled to the edge of the yard, but it was so worth waiting for him to get back to our house.
While they cutting trees Walter was busy loading the trailer with the branches and hauling them off to Rockwood Park. By the time the tree guys were done, Walter was caught up to them in limb removal. He had only two loads that he had to take off the next day to finish up the yard. Walter has been a busy guy splitting the cut wood. He has a couple of really awesome woodpiles going on out in the yard.
Meanwhile over at Mom & Dad's house - there were trees down everywhere. No just uprooted and tilting over they were all the way over, 50 trees in all. Five fell right near or on the porch. Dad has been our working feverishly to delimb the ones that had fallen in the yard, and get them all cut up and moved. It has taken a while for them to even find out what it is going to take to get the trees taken care of and for someone to come out and even give them an estimate on the damage to the house. I guess it all has to do with the amount of work that is now out there for contractors to do. No one wants to over extend themselves when they aren't sure that they can complete the work.
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As power stated coming on around the Richmond area,
those who were still without were beginning to show
signs of frustration. |
The power outage was the biggest thing that we had to deal with during the week after the storm. Our water heater held out fantastic. We both were able to get a shower every day for through Thursday (the water was very tepid by then.) We had been anticipating have the power restored on Tuesday, then Wednesday, and then Friday. On Thursday the whole situation got the best of me when we were out of propane as I went to fix dinner. Walt went out for the refill and just as he pulled back into the driveway the power came on! I really should have sent him out for propane a few days earlier if I'd known it was going to work that well. The power restoration only lasted a few hours. It went back out after midnight. Even though it didn't stay on - it had been on long enough to reheat the water in the water heater. Yeah! one more hot shower. It surely was tough leaving out from a dark house with all the rest of the houses in the neighborhood lit up as I was leaving out on Friday morning. Sort of depressing. We finally had full power restoration by 3:30 p.m. on Friday afternoon.
