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Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Recovering from an ice storm

We had a big ice storm in Southern Ontario last weekend. There are still thousands or people without power and many are unlikely to have power restored before Christmas (tomorrow).

We got off fairly lightly. We were never without power (underground wires) and the roads were cleared pretty quickly. However, lots of trees in our neighborhood suffered and some were almost completely destroyed by the weight of the ice. A large branch of the ash tree in our front yard cracked but did not fall. It was hanging over our driveway so we had to move our cars. We called Davey Tree on Sunday and they showed up yesterday to remove the broken branch.

It was quite a production. The woman in charge had to park this huge truck in our driveway and maneuver the cherry picker trough the branches. As you can imagine, it attracted an audience from the neighboring houses. When the job was done they swept up all the debris and turned it into sawdust in a wood chipper. There are more photos at: Uh Oh!. We have a daughter and a granddaughter who would love this job!




7 comments :

ergaster said...

We lost it for close to 24 hours. About half my neighbour's tree is in the back yard, and much of the rest on my other neighbour's roof. Watching and hearing transformers explode all over the place is...special.

Not.

Newbie said...

Are you ok Larry? My trees are holing up but from time to time I hear a cracking noise of ice dropping off the trees. My neighbors trees lost most of their branches. No damage, thanks to?????? Random lack of an encounter????? Possibly.

DianaMac said...

I had no power for 24 hours but had the generator running during the day to power most of the house.

Faizal Ali said...

There have been a number of cases (some fatal) of people suffering carbon monoxide poisoning, as they try to keep warm by bringing a barbecue grill or propane stove into their house, or running a gas generator unsafely. So consider this a public service announcement: If you don't have the means to safely keep your home warm, go stay somewhere else or use one of the community warming centres that have been set up. Have safe holiday, everyone.

Newbie said...

I have a few gas fire places running on full blast .Am I ok? It seems fine to me as my pets have not been affected and nigher thave he raccoon under my deck right below. lol

Faizal Ali said...

So long as they are adequately vented by a chimney, they should be OK. Best to install some carbon monoxide detectors to make sure.

If they're not OK, of course, you're not likely around to read this....

Newbie said...

Actually, one of the vents got covered by ice. But, there must be some kind of sensor, because the fireplace turned itself off and I couldn't turn it back on. Thanks for the tip. The power is back on now.