Storm Damage

Here are some photos I took yesterday driving around town, being one of those "damned rubberneckers" of the tree damage from Friday's storm. Another thing to consider is the trees that may have been damaged but not broken, and therefore, unseen. Upcoming high winds/thunderstorms/heavy snows may continue to bring these weakened branches down and knocking out power again or damaging houses and vehicles.

This first one is at a church right across the street from the University of Nebraska-Omaha. Notice how it just snapped in relation to the other pines next to it. These next few are at ElmwoodPark, adjacent to UNO. This park sustained heavy damage in 1997 from the ice storm. Though it's difficult to determine, these are large arteries of the trees; some are 12" in diameter.

This one is at the bottom of the block in the old neighborhood where Steve, Jenna, and I used to live. This is about 4 blocks from Elmwood Park.

This is at the intersection of Saddle Creek and Poppleton. These trees used to be cottonwood, and monsters at that. I'm wagering they're at least 30" in diameter and the better part of 60' tall.

This is at Joslyn Castle, very close to where i work. Steve and I were married here in 1997. These trees previously survived the 1913 Easter Sunday Tornado that hit the castle so many of these tree are over 100 years old. That's the sad thing about this storm; you can "replace" a historic building but not the history behind it. But with trees this old, it'll take another 100 years. These are monuments to the city and they can never be replaced.

This is at Memorial Park on my way into work.

Now I realize that most of you have no idea where these are taken (nor care) and there's no way you can appreciate the magnitude of the destruction and just how huge these tree were. There hasn't been a street yet I've seen that doesn't have some sort of tree debris piled on the curb. One of the drop-off sites (out of 11) for debris is Tranquility Park, a huge soccer/baseball complex in NW Omaha. There were over 7 THOUSAND trucks waiting to get in to dump debris.

Seven. Thousand.

Still around 6 thousand people without power.

I find it ironic for any severe storm that passes, beit tornado, blizzard, or hurricane. Ever noticed that after the storm has passed and people are surveying the damage that it's sunny with puffy clouds and singing birds? You almost wish it to be cloudy and gloomy for at least a day to match the moods of those affected.

Rarely is it; it's usually sunny and happy looking.

Is it a cruel joke, or a glimmer of hope?

Weekend Wrap-up

Caption Contest Winner! This week's winner is Tanya with her, "Ron Jeremy IS the hardest working man in the industry!!" To mirror Holy's response, after reading Tanya's caption, I, too, spit my coffee out!
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Weight Watcher's Update: Well, just as I suspected, my body figured out what was going on and decided to stage a mutiny. After having lost nearly 10# in two weeks, I was only able to lose half-a-pound. But, it's still a loss so I'll take it.

Start: 258
Current: 247.5
10%: 233
Goal: 220-ish
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Yet another wild weather weekend, and frankly, I'm getting tired of the violent weather. The wonderfully cool temperatures and low humidty is great. But what we experienced Friday I don't ever have to experience again.

We were going to Des Moines for the weekend and there was a 60% of rain during the day and into the evening. I watched the clouds slowly build throughout the afternoon. And watched them get increasingly darker.

At last word the storm was traveling around 60 mph. We figured once we got on the road we'd out-run in. But after my mom called me twice in less than two minutes with a panicky message of, "The storm is moving at over 80 mph. Get off the road now! You'll get blow off!"

I watched the storm in my rear-view mirrors get closer and change from dark grey to sickly mint-green. Steve found a you-scrub-it car wash with some empty bays and we dove in about 5 minutes before the brunt of the storm hit. I called my mom to let her know we were off the road and described the white front of the storm as it rotated due to the massive wind sheer. Then

WHAM!

The wind hit full-force and I scrambled back into the car as the back end got pelted with pea-sized hail for almost 2 minutes. If there was ever a time that you could have a complete white-out due to rain, this was it. No lie. There were some trees about 60' in front of us that just disappeared. This was more than mere sheets of rain. Visibility was maybe 20'.

We hunkered down to wait it out for 20 minutes. Kudos to Steve for scouting out the car wash. Normally when we go to DSM we take 680 North instead of I-80 through Council Bluffs; much less traffic. However, we picked the girls up from daycare on our way out so we took 80 through CB. Had we been on 680 we would have had no cover, no protection. So I thanked God things worked out as they did.

However, not everyone was so lucky. We later learned of two teens from CB that were instantly killed when a tree fell onto their car. The pictures showed that the tree pretty much cut the car in two. If you have the time check out our local online news station with stories, video, and pictures of the storm.

Our house didn't sustain any damage, just some plant damage. But on the other side of the block where I grew up a 40' blue spruce just toppled over in the wind. My mom saw it happen. The ground is so saturated that the roots have nothing to hang on to.

132K people were without power after Friday's storm. As of this morning 32K still had no power and some may not get it back until this weekend. The last storm that knocked out this much of the city was in 1997 with the October Snow Storm. I have to drive through one of the older neighborhoods to get to daycare and work and the trees are HUGE; 70' tall, well-established monsters. Many of them completely uprooted or with major limb damage. The offical wind speed was 115 mph and has been classified as stright-line winds. This is similar to tornadoes as far as wind speed but there is no rotation and the path is much wider whereas tornadoes have a very narrow path of destruction.

Where to Start??

This has been an unbelievably violent and destructive spring for our area. Wide-spread flooding and almost nightly tornadoes continue to ravage.

Last night was no different.

We were warned pretty much all day yesterday that storms were going to form, again. I watched the NE part of the state get continually dark and the thunderhead flatten out. Lightening flashed and thunder rumbled in the distance. It was pretty windy throughout the day; gusting to over 40 mph.

For three hours we were under tornado warnings. The bizarre thing I noted about this storm as I was glued to the TV was that it kept growing; getting longer and wider. It was a slow moving line that continued to dump rain and amazing rates. Our house received 2.5" of rain in less than an hour. Our house had about 2 minutes of pea- and marble-sized hail.

The rainfall and storm conditions were described as a true tropical storm; huge drops, sheets of rain. The kind of rainfall seen, typically, along the Gulf. Our states are so saturated that the extra rain has nowhere to go but out of rivers and streams.

You think food prices are high now? Farmers can't get into their fields and if anything at all was planted it is more than likely washed away. Farmers are so far behind schedule and there's not one thing they can do about it.

Then this news story and later this article found on pretty much every major news station across the country came into the picture. A huge tornado touched down in Little Sioux, IA (about 40mi N of Omaha). There's a Boy Scout camp and there was a Leadership camp going on this week. 93 Scouts and 25 staff were up there this week. With little warning the tornado formed. Most sought shelter but a few were out hiking.

All buildings were destroyed.

48 injuries reported; 42 of those hospitalized at area hospitals in NE, IA, and SD. Creighton received four victims. Four teens, unfortunately, lost their lives when a brick shelter collapsed. The uninjured Scouts quickly mobilized into action, breaking into a storage shed to get an ATV and saws to start clearing away the debris and tending to those that needed medical attention. Iowa Governor Chet Culver hailed the Scouts as the true heroes.

I just found out that one of our Pulmonary nurse's had one of her sons at the camp. He's fine; incredibly shaken up, but, apparently, unharmed. Needless to say she didn't come into work today.

This afternoon I found this video on The Weather Channel.

Donate to the Red Cross; they are quickly running out of resources with all the storm damage in the region in the recent weeks.



And pray.