The trees are falling

It's almost 1:00 AM Wednesday.  The freezing rain drenched us from 7:00~11:00 then tapered off.  I looked outside and saw almost an inch of ice on everything.  I had to look out the window because the deck door was iced closed.

I tried to convince myself it was safe to go to bed, but then heard something.  Like a heavy snowplow rumbling by.  But we have no snow removal on our private road.

I went back to the window, opened it and listened.  It had been calm, but now the wind is picking up.  I hear the tortured groan of frozen trees wrestling against it.  Then crackling.  There's that rumbling sound again.
The trees are breaking.

In the distance I see flashes of light and at first thought it was lightning.  But no, lightning doesn't flare red or blue.  Out there other trees are falling, taking out transformers.  The news say almost 15,000 are without electric - all in Stark county.

Another sassafras limb just crashed to the ground.  Across at the neighbors ash limbs litter their driveway.  Another slithering thump off somewhere in the golf course.  Earlier one of the pines at the back of my lot splintered away to careen into the back of the asparagus bed.

My power has been flicking on and off for the past couple of hours, but holds steady right now.

There goes another tree or large limb, sounding close by.   This is probably the most I've ever been worried in this house.  And there absolutely nothing I can do.  The world is a hard-packed sheet of ice here and I couldn't go anywhere if I wanted to.

All I can do is pace from window to window.  It's going to be a very long night.  And there is still more freezing rain to come.

I hate ice.

MORNING ======================================================
8:30 AM - It's pretty grim out there.  The freezing rain turned into plain rain sometime after 2:00 AM.  Most of the ice was washed off the trees before the (now escalating) wind arrived.  The sassafras lost a lot of heavy limbs.  Thankfully they plummeted straight down and didn't do any damage.

some of the broken sassafras limbs

There are limbs down everywhere that I can see: back in the golf course and throughout the neighborhood.  Living in a 'park-like setting with mature trees' is a perk - except in weather like this.

Across the street I see the main power cable has been pulled off the house and lies across their driveway.  A limb tore it off right at the weatherhead.  Doesn't look like the cable is broken, just yanked out of its house moorings.  The meter is still holding firm.  They may still have power.  The power here came on and off all night, but seems steady this morning.  But more than 45,000 are still without power.

While the ice is off the trees the water has backed up everywhere else.  I couldn't get out to the deck this morning so had to go out through the patio and chip out the breezeway door.  There is over 2" of solid ice out there (the downspout split and spilled tons of  water on the deck sure didn't help).

And I see that the garage door is frozen to the driveway - the ice there is very thick, more than 3 inches as far as I can judge.  I'm not going anywhere for a while.

We're supposed to get cold today with 2-3 inches of snow.  No "happy happy joy joy" here..

11:00 AM update =======================================
High winds are shaking things up right now.  Even with the new windows I can hear it roaring out there (sustained winds of 25mph with gusts over 40). If the rain hadn't melted the ice (early this morning) we'd be having extreme tree/shrub carnage now.  As it is branches ARE coming down.  The snow is sideways...

I see that a neighbor in another direction has taken some serious tree limb damage.  His property borders the golf course and there is a 12' chain link fence between them.  The golf course fence has been smashed down by part of a tree falling on it.  It's a snarled mess over there and I don't envy the cleanup.

* * *
(Use links on top of sidebar to view my other garden pages.)