quote:

Originally posted by OKCGene:
This will affect corn for human consumption but maybe they can, if they have the equipment, harvest all they can and grind it into corn silage for animal feed. Nevertheless it will be a huge loss financially for many farmers.

Plus the potential effect on ethanol prices, and therefore gasoline prices, since corn is the main source of ethanol.

Potential damage, injury, and possible loss of life changed the way the U.S. Forest Service managed its designated camp grounds—and only 10 or 15 years ago. Now annual surveys of each campsite are made and any tree that looks dangerous is taken out. Suspect trees are typically core sampled to see if there’s internal rot. In some cases, where mountain pine beetle (or other disease) has hit a campground, the results are tragic—-little shade or privacy left.

w/o power still
Iowa city 12,000
quad cities 45,000
Des Moines 60,000

^^^^^^^^^^
I feel for you. Our local power crews have been up in PA. helping restore power. The Southern Company has agreements with many other power companies when hurricanes strike.

Visited dad today...my hometown looks like a warzone. Went out to cemetery to check on mom’s headstone and a HUGE tree behind it totally rooted up and snapped. I’d share the pick I took and of a flattened field, but don’t have a photo website hosting pics.

Anyway, mom never let the wind mess up her hair...ironically, her flowers on the top stayed on...
Mom 1
Derecho 0

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
w/o power still
Iowa city 12,000
quad cities 45,000
Des Moines 60,000

I think I saw Cedar Rapids was still 100,000 without power...

Could very well be
My figures are from
Mid America energy website.

Got a local report. Our guys are in NYC. I suspect that power crews from outside the area are tied up on the East Coast. After Katrina we had power crews from all over down here. Many from the Midwest.

It is important to know whether that number is customers or households. I suspect that it is households.

This is what I am dealing with right now as we speak. There was a live, but hollow, 100+ foot white oak smack on the property line with my neighbor. Now, it's laying on their house. And I have a 12 foot diameter root ball (and a big hole) that is 90% on their property that will likely tip back onto my property when the tree company cuts the trunk at the base. The root ball lifted 40 linear feet of my fence out of the ground. And I will likely lose more fence because the crane needed to get it off their house can't access if from the front. They have to come through my backyard. My insurance is covering my fence and the root ball disposal, since that has to be disposed of to replace my fence. And their insurance is paying for any more destruction to my fence and yard as part of the cost of getting the tree off their roof.

The crane company is charging $10,000 to remove the tree. It would have cost half that to remove it when it was still standing. I offered to pay half in the past to have to removed but they didn't want it taken down.

From that picture it looks like the bulk of the tree is not on the house, still a messy cleanup. I realize the ‘smaller’ branches are plenty heavy.

I see branches above than need cleanup too. $10k is getting serious.

That tree seriously damaged a pretty big Hickory. It destroyed a big Maple. And brought some big limbs down off a neighboring oak. (I live in a neighborhood called Mammoth Oaks for a reason ). The tree trunk that looks like a post just to the right of the kayaks was a 65 foot tall California Redwood my neighbor planted years ago. It's history.

Initially we thought the tree only damaged the soffits. But looking around inside, where the interior walls meet the ceilings is all cracked. Some of the door ways are now sagging. The french doors in the back won't open - they are pinned shut. There's a bunch of broken rafters. The toilet vent pipe snapped off inside the house.

This is a section of my 6 foot privacy fence on top of the tree.

I had a water oak that size on my house after Katrina. After the tree was removed I had the stump ground two feet below ground. I then dug out the rest of the roots added soil and mixed it with the sawdust. I got a free bald cypress sapling and planted it there four months later. It is now thirty feet tall. Had to use a crane as well. Insurance covered the crane but not the cutting up of the tree and stump grinding.

Don't any of you own chain saws? Or know how to use it? OK, or own fireplaces?

The numbers I offered are for customers.

quote:

Originally posted by r0gue:
Trust your local woodpecker.

Those oaks are deceiving. The one that fell over on my neighbor's house was so hollow you could stand up inside it. When it fell over, the trunk collapsed in on itself. But it gave very little evidence from the outside. But once over, the extent of hollowness, and base and root rot became apparent. Nevertheless, it appeared healthy and had a full set of foliage on it like all the rest of the oak trees near it. What surprised me after seeing is that it uprooted instead of breaking off.

I have to wonder ,
Out of the thousands and thousands of people that are going with out power,

What percentage of the outages are due to trees that fell on wires ?

In other words preventable.

I understand that poles get blown over,that's one thing.

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
I have to wonder ,
Out of the thousands and thousands of people that are going with out power,

What percentage of the outages are due to trees that fell on wires ?

In other words preventable.

I understand that poles get blown over,that's one thing.

Very valid point. Most of my hometown has power restored. In the smaller communities I drove through, most that lacked power was the result of lines down because of trees.

If I can find the article, I’ll link it, but I think both MidAmerica and Alliant stated the problem they are facing is the number of trees down and across lines. I know where my inlaws live in the Cedar Rapids area it’s a matter of trucks being able to get to them.

quote:

I have to wonder ,
Out of the thousands and thousands of people that are going with out power,

What percentage of the outages are due to trees that fell on wires ?

^^^^^^^^^^^
I would bet 90 percent. The Power Company contracts with Asplundh who cuts trees back every four years or so. They get lots of complaints because people like trees. I know I do.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:

quote:

I have to wonder ,
Out of the thousands and thousands of people that are going with out power,

What percentage of the outages are due to trees that fell on wires ?

^^^^^^^^^^^
I would bet 90 percent. The Power Company contracts with Asplundh who cuts trees back every four years or so. They get lots of complaints because people like trees. I know I do.

I doubt it's that high, but its high, no doubt. Last week following tropical storm Isaias I was without power for 3 days. All due to a blown fuse on a transformer. No trees down, and not even any evidence of branches down on the lines.

Trees pose a threat, no doubt, but trimming them back to the point they aren't is completely impractical. Dangerous trees that are leaning need to come down, though. There are three on my street that are leaning steeply towards lines. The owners, the city, and Dominion Power have all been placed on notice of these dangerous trees, for at least the last 3 years, and no one has done anything about them. It's almost as if they think it's easier to deal with it once it falls and causes a power outage, and refrigerated food losses, than to take care of the problem now. The guy that lives across the street from me has had 2 dead trees fall across our power lines in the last two years knocking out power to the whole street. A White Oak and a Sweet Gum. He knew those trees were there, the city knew, and the power company knew, and no one did anything. Now he's got a huge poplar tree leaning toward the lines that would fall if it weren't for the fact that another smaller tree is still holding it up. Me and my neighbors have reported it to the owner, city and power company for at least 2 years and its still there. I watched a Dominion Power truck come out last year. The driver got out, looked at it, drove off, and never came back.

So not only do the owners not care, the city and the power company don't appear to, either. And the outages are all exacerbated by the fact that Dominion Power's infrastructure is held together with paperclips and chewed bubble gum.