[Chipmaker]

Winds are finally down to 30 mph with gusts to 50, very ittle to no rain, but I did manage to get 19.5" of rain by my rain gages. They said we cold expect up to 20 or more out of Ivan and they were right for once. Winds got pretty fierce early this morning and lots of popping and cracking going on. I did loose some trees, mostly uprooted and blown over but there are quite a few that just snapped off, and I have 7 that I counted so far that are gonna have to come down as the root mas is heaved up.....Got enough limbs and tops i my yard and field to make an ark.
Lost some chainlink fence behind the house, and quiet a bit of field fence, and a lot of hot wire fence. The stream came up pretty darn quick so I have a 3 foot deep river running through my yard right now..........The stream is about 15 feet below my yards low point so it has a heap of water flowing. My pond is beyond full, as the stream has the fields flooded and its water for as far as I can see, so my outlet pipe is about 18" under that level of what the water is now. You can see where my blue dyed water is intermingling with the muddy stream water. Never in my life did I ever see waves and white caps on my pond. EWater was literally coming off its surface in sheets and hitting the side of the house, just like sea spray at the beach would be.... So far so good at least in Alabama as there have been no injuries or deaths. Florida folks did not fare out as well though. Lots of tornadoes just dropping out of the sky all arund the outer bands of the hurricane and a few came pretty darn close to our place..........but none hit near by anyhow, or at least not that we know of.

The entire coastal communities of Alabama for the most part are leveled, and they are in a hurting situation. Two of the shelters in town had the roofs collapse and fols had to be evacuated from them.....Well I am tired, and hungry and wet, so I need to drag out the gas grill as were having steaks tonight to celebrate we came out fine and no major problems......

Later

 

[Live Oak]

Glad to hear you made out pretty well in the storm Chip! Sorry to hear about the trees. Any chance you can save any of them by hooking a cable to them and pulling them back up with the tractor and staking them to the ground in hopes the roots might grow back?

 

[John-in-Ga]

Chipmaker,

Glad you and yours came through the storm OK. Hope you can get the clean up done and repairs made with out further problems.

:cpu:

 

[psrumors]

Glad to hear it Chip. I spoke to my G-parents about 11:30 ET. The had sustain some structural damage and quite a few trees up rooted. Have you heard how Greenville faired? My Grand-Father stated Greenville got hit hard but am unsure what he was "told" and what he knows.

Again, good to hear you made it through.

 

[Chipmaker]

Chief.
All these trees are way to large to take a chance with if you get another blow and with the ground so soggy wet it probably would not take much to finish what Ivan started. Safest best is cut em down and don/t take no chances with them falling later when you least expect it. We get some stiff winds on occasion and winter season is coming up and thats when we usually get a lot of rain, (Dam theres that word again I swore I would never use anymore) So odds are you probably would wind up having to remove them sooner or later and I rather do it sooner than rish getting hurt.


PSRumors.
Yes, Greenville had the hell knocked out of them. Same with Fort Deposit and my area. Ivan just hung in this area deciding what he was gonna do next I think. He was slow every inch of the way but when he got into these parts he sort of just stalled. The lazy SOB actually took I 65 North all the way. Talk about a lazy hurricane. No wonder he had all that energy, he cruised the interstate and it did not take any effort. When you count how many hours it took him to come ashore (200 miles out), and then travel through the coastal areas up the interstae to Greenville area, it took him almost as long to come from Greenville to MOntgomery area, about 50 or so miles........

Its once again raining out, not really hard just a light steady rain with some gusts in the area of 25 mph or so. Still kind of breezy out. Gonna be a few days or a week or two before I can drive on that ground of mine without making ruts all over the place. Besides I want to let thwe trees set a bit before working around under them, as there is a lot of broken limbs on most of them that has to come out as well. At least it should not hurt the grass this time of year. I had just finished cutting that grass all over the property nice and short as I knew from past experiences how much of a mess of leaves and limbs it makes and getting itout of short grass is easy........getting it up out of long stuff is not fun.

Attached image of two of the leaner trees, both are on each side of my one shed. They used to be straight up unmtil yesterday. The large oak on the left has its roots exposed to the point you can slide bricks under them. The two pines on the right are also coming down. They are ok other than tops blown out and broken branches, but they are just too large and tall for being so close to the house.

The green stuff is not long shaggy grass its all small limb tips and leave clusters and some limbs. 24 hours prior it was nice green grass cut to about 2 or 2 1/4" uniform length. Now its anywhere from ankle to knee deep in trash from trees.

 

[Chipmaker]

My new stream in the back yard. Its about 150 feet across from one side to the other and in the middle its up to your waist. It was usually just a shallow swell. A couple of trees Ivan finished up on what he started......too bad they are in an area I am not worried about........

 

[Chipmaker]

A shot of the mess at the back of the house. The large long leaf pine behind that sink on the fence is over 100 feet tall and it did not lean until this morning. It also has a lot of the top blown out and lots of broken limbs, so its going to come down also, as its only about 8 feet from the corner of the house. Before the top did not hang over the house at all, now even with a portion of the top gone its leaning way over the house. You can see where the soild was all loosened up with the wind pushing it around. I know they have a long tap root, but I have seen em get that tap root fractured so were not gonna chance it. Perhaps if it was a bit further away from the house we ay let it be, as it was a nice tall perfectly straight tree. Its about 32 or 34 inches in diameter.

 

[Live Oak]

Man! That is one hell of a mess you have going there Chip. Sorry to see you having to deal with this mess. Are your neighbors and you all (except the mutants of course ) sticking together and helping each other out? Thing so a LOT faster and easier that way.

 

[Archdean]

I knew you could do it, now you have an opurtunity to show us just how tough you really can be!!
Dean:lmao: :ride:

 

[memmurphy]

Glad your all right Chip. Man, one more gust of high wind from the right direction and that tree could have went through the middle of the house. I was seeing 90mph gusts and 70mph plus sustained on weather stations southwest of your location and progressing north before logging off at 2:00am. Must have been a very long night for you.

Mark

 

[Ingersoll444]

Well trees are tough to lose, and you got a good few months of work ahead of you but everyones ok, thats the important part. Glad you made it through!!!

Just think of all the prohects you can post about in the comming weeks



That looks like it was some NASTY storm!!! Feel real bad for the aeras hard hit.

 

[snowmower]

Chip, glad you finally got your rain. Always gotta be careful what you ask for.

Good luck with the clean up. Hope all are safe and sound. Once things dry out a little, I count about 15 projects you could use your tractor to help with.

SnowMower

 

[guest]

wow what a friggin mess... glad it did not turn out too bad... Well at least you are ok.. still a mess..

id like to save this picture for next summer when you are wishing for some long awaited rain...


<img src=http://www.tractorforum.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=56197>

 

[AlbanyBob]

Chip:

I am really happy that no one got hurt in all of that.....

It looks like you got one hell of a mess to clean up there.....

Now all you need a is a good chain saw to help in the clean up with all the tree branches and trees that have to come down.......

My suggestion would be if you don't have one and they are availabe there....Get a HUSQUVARNA.......

:spinsmile

Again glad no one was hurt keep us posted......

If I was closer I would take my saw to you and help with the clean up......

Bob

 

[Chipmaker]

Originally posted by AlbanyBob
Chip:

snipMy suggestion would be if you don't have one and they are availabe there....Get a HUSQUVARNA.......

:spinsmile

Again glad no one was hurt keep us posted......

snip

Bob

Thats alal I have around my place anymore. Huskys........My favorite it s the 272 and then the 282, followed by the 55 for light work or my 341. Also have 2 372's for the big stuff.......Have two echo top handles I use in trees for limbing when I climb, and three Stihls that have been nothing but trouble...)036, 041 and 029. My 028 is just to tempermental so I never use it any more. Once you get it cranked it works fine, as long as you keep feeding gas and oil its fine. Shut it off and you crank your head off getting it started again. Has good compression and every thing else, and the repair shop just throws up theri hands in whats wrong. I got tired of paying to have parts replaced without it working any better, so one day I'll either sell all my Stihls or melt em down.I also have an old husky rancher 44 probably in the area of 30 years old fires up one or two pulls and works all day long.........I am just viewing this cleanu and tree removals as a free bee job. I used to remove trees and do arborist work on the side until I could not climb any more due to elbow and knee problems, but 95% of this work can be done from the ground. Once my friend gets back from the desert, I'll chase him up to get the busted limbs etc out of the other trees and make decent pruning cuts to clean up the ripped off limb stubs etc. Besides that I am getting a head start on my fall cleanup.....Once the remaining pine straw and leaves fall in late Oct or November as usual, there is not going to be near as much to clean up then, and it will give me that time to spit some wood up for the next years heating season, and I will have a heap of wood to split and cut up. Its really not all that big of deal, as I am retired, nothing I have to do or any place I have to be for the most part, so I can work at it as I feel like it and when its done its done. If I still had to go out and do a day job all week it would get to me but right now its just something to keep me occupied and busy.......

 

[Ernie]

Unbelievable mess there Chipster.. Looks like you will be coming out of retirement for a period of time Just thankful that you and family including pets are alright.. I can relate to the water problem as I have large fields under 8-10 inches and very soft..... I am really thankful that we weathered Frances as good as we did... No where near as bad as Ivan.. Keep the chin up all will work out in the long run.

 

[bontai Joe]

Sorry to see the mess you have to deal with, glad to hear no one was hurt. You mentioned cutting up wood for the heating season? You have a heating season in Alabama? Must be the 1st and 2nd of January, right?

 

[Chipmaker]

Originally posted by bontai Joe
Sorry to see the mess you have to deal with, glad to hear no one was hurt. You mentioned cutting up wood for the heating season? You have a heating season in Alabama? Must be the 1st and 2nd of January, right?

Of course when the tempsd get in the low 50's or into the 40's for sure we fire up the woodstove.....If it gets in the 30's we turn on electric heat, fire up our kerosene heaters, open the electric stoves oven door and throw a bunch more logs on the fire........In the 20's we usually all pack up and head to the Bahamas or Hawaii. Heck those Canadians don;t have a monoply on migrating to warm weather........but this year Their usual haunts for holiday is sort of out of the question.........

Seriously though we do have a heating season and from Birmingham northward they routinely get snow and ice and freezing weather, but the lower sections of alabama it only gets cold until the sun come up, but when its in the high 40's or low 50's its a darn penetrating damp cold that goes right through you.
I have only ever seen a thin crust of ice on my pond and that wa a looooooong time ago, and then it was only around the edges in a shady spot and lasted "until the sun came up". My water lines are 6 to 8 inches deep if that tell you anything

Every once in awhile we get a cold snap just like Florida does but it never amounts to anything as its gone, yep you guess it when the sun comes up. Now where SteveThomas lives it gets colder than a well diggers backside, and he is not all that far north of where we are at. But those northern counties here in high elevations (high for Alabama anyhow, nothing as compared with up in the hnorth section of the USA or where your at) gets darn cold.

 

[mtn man]

Wow, I've never heard of burying water lines so shallow. Up here, water lines have to be at least 5 feet deep, and 6 is considered better.

Glad you made it through the storm OK. I really feel for the people closer to the coast who suffered such severe damage. The most severe blizzards we get up here don't come close to that sort of devastation, but the ice storm of 1998 (?) was pretty awful. Still, it was nothing compared to the damage Ivan did to people not far from you. Good luck with all your chores. Guess it'll be a while before you can get up in the morning and say to yourself, "Hmmmm, what should I do today......"

 

[bontai Joe]

Well we got Ivan on Saturday with 9" of rain in several spots in PA. I'm lucky that I live on a hill and escaped the water damage that hit so many. I saw a LOT of elec. water heaters being sold at Home Depot on Sunday afternoon. They had all their sump pumps and wet vacs up front by the cash register. We still have several roads closed due to trees being washed out and falling over. It was bad enough with out the 100 mph winds, I don't envy you guys that have to deal with hurricanes at all. I'd much rather deal with my occassional 20" snowfall.