trees

Lots of news

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It’s been a while since I’ve posted and a lot has happened. We had a variety of small storms.

I had contacted my insurance about my roof from the hail storm we had May 12. They came out May 21. The result included fence damage, garage door damage, and roof damage. There was enough damage to now require a new roof.

Then May 22 came. That day will be remembered by many for a long time. I wrote a post I couldn’t post at the time. I include it below.

Thursday May 23

I’m writing this having made it thru the night.

Yesterday we had a storm blow thru Temple. I’m sure surrounding areas, including Belton got hit also.

It was mid/late afternoon and I had turned news on, maybe 5pm. At that point a storm with hail, news said 2-3” hail had been coming our way. I kept the news on. They seemed to think the storm would go north and maybe just hit north Bell county. I kept watching.

A friend called me but at that point sirens were going. I hung up with him. Those were tornado sirens. I couldn’t see anything but we were in warnings. News at that point said Morgans Point area could get hit with the storm.

A friend and I were texting each other. Her area got hit with the storm before I did, and that area got damage. But shortly after texting with her, and I mean minutes later, wind started up here. We even got more hail. And then rain.

And then the storm hit. Linus (my dog) and I hunkered down in the bedroom closet. Linus was scared, poor baby.

By the time it was over, and it didn’t take long, Temple had damage. A funnel was spotted in the north side of Temple. Roofs got torn off (I understand some got taken all the way off), windows got blown in. I hear a house collapsed and a mobile home was taken off its foundation.

By 7:30pm Linus and I went outside for a walk. Part of my back fence is down so I can’t let him out there. People in the area lost shingles, a lot of shingles, fences came down, backyard coops got thrown over fences, and I’m sure there was damage I didn’t see.

People have water in their houses due to the roof damages, and some have damage from fencing coming thru their windows. It is a bit of a mess! One neighbor said her second floor bathroom is flooded because of roof damage. I spoke with some one else, they were driving around looking for items they had lost, and they had a part of their fence blow thru their dining room/living room windows. They said they had water and glass everywhere.

But it appears we got off light. North Temple got hit as did downtown. Pignetti’s, an Italian restaurant downtown lost their roof, it caved in. I understand some houses had significant damage.

As of today, the day after the storm, some areas are still without power. I have power, just no internet. I have no tv so I don’t know if another storm is due this afternoon, though I’ve been told we have two coming. One is due around 3ish, and another later around 8pmish.

Right now as I write this, almost 1pm it is eerily still outside. Not a breath of wind.

All you hear outside are occasional emergency vehicle sirens and the sound of hammering. Roofing companies are outside putting tarps up on roofs in the area. Some started that last night.

The good news here is in this neighborhood, people may have house damage but nobody was hurt. I don’t think that’s true all around the area, but over here in this small little circle it seems to be true.

And for the record yesterday’s storm gave us 1.77 inches of rain. But this morning we got another 1.14 by 10AM.

My neighbor also has Spectrum internet, and they don’t have internet right now either. Hopefully it will come back up soon.

UPDATE: The upshot of that storm was Temple got hit by 2 tornadoes. The damage in some area is significant. Buildings have experienced total damage, some major damage. Some places have already said it will be 6 months or longer to rebuild, some may not rebuild. Houses have been turn up. Trees have been down, some with power lines over, or by them. One friend of a friend had significant outside damage. They had trees downed, an outside roof (pergola I think) demolished. Power lines we torn down. At this house a power line went down over an area of bushes, when the power was turned on the bushes burst into flames.

Many areas saw trees torn down, broken, twisted apart. Some were uprooted while others just lost branches, albeit enough branches to need to be cut down. One neighbor mentioned that a friend had a “new tree” in their back yard. A tree had been uprooted and moved due to the storm.

One hotel in Temple even had their front portico (the covered area in front of the main door, where cars drive) collapse. There has been enough damage FEMA assistance is now available within the Temple area. The lakes are now so full water needs to be released before the July 4th holiday.

Luckily we have not had a repeat of any of these storms since then.

Its been a while

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Sorry I haven’t posted in a while. Its been an interesting time. For starters, I’ve been “sick” with allergies. Like really bad allergies. Bad enough I’ve been on antibiotics and steroids, plus inhalers. Its been bad. Even some street corners look like someone poured yellow paint on them. This has been pollen time in this area of Texas. And me, I got hit bad.

But help is on the way. The weather is changing, and with it hopefully all the various pollens will settle down. Or at least hopefully it will settle down enough for people to breathe easily again.

Or at least for me to breathe easier.

As for how does that affect my garden? Well I haven’t been able to spend much time out in the yard. I did get a few things done. On one day we went out and redid the drip water system, added some new lines, added a second timer, and I was even able to get some seed in. The grapes are actually growing, and were able put out small grapes. I will need to cover them to keep the birds from them.

The blackberries are coming back, and even the roses have been blooming. The trees have gone through flowers and are getting leaves, though the apples are not getting apples this year. But I didn’t expect them to.

Where the garden is not where I hoped it would be, allergies have put me behind the curve a bit, but I think we’ll still get something. I’ve been harvesting lettuce, even some arugula, and even the peas are still producing. So all is not lost yet. But the weather is still up and down. One day was a high of 64, and the next in the 80’s so this is Austin, TX spring weather.

The day after

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Last night, or rather early this morning, at 1AM I got up. Last night was our coldest night expected. And at 1AM it was 19 degrees outside. How much lower did it actually get, I’m not sure. Considering the forecast for this area was 18 I’m betting we dropped below that.

Yesterday, during the day time, I had a small space heater blowing near where my water softener attaches to the house water. Last year that was where it froze and I wanted to make sure that didn’t happen again. I wanted to make sure water was running, so when I turned the heater off, it was to run a tap in one of the spare bathrooms. They said to run it farthest from where water comes in. I didn’t choose that faucet since that was attached to the room I was sleeping in and I didn’t want to listen to dripping water all night. But I did pick the next best. The good news is that running the space heater had heated the area near the water softener to 50 degrees, I had a thermometer near it. Even with out it running all night that area was about 45 this morning. And the water was running okay too.

As for today it is now 2:30 PM and here at my house we have made it up to 40 degrees. Ice is melting, and has been sliding off the roof top. Most of it slid off this morning, and I could hear it, especially when I walked outside, or opened the door. Most of it is now gone, other than those areas that don’t get much sun light.

With this temperature most of the glass areas are now wet, but no longer frozen. Some area, those that have had all day sun, those areas are actually dry. Most of the roads area dry too.

It was dry enough I was actually able to walk Linus, my dog. One thing I notice out on my walk was flying icicles. This morning we had some wind, I noted 8mph on my weather station. Consequently, it was shaking trees. That shaking, at least I’m guessing here, was able to dislodge ice from the trees and send it flying. I even have ice pieces in the middle of my driveway. I’m guessing this is a result of the flying ice, since there is no other easy explanation – no tree limbs over my driveway.

As for the yard, the ice yesterday left one of my apple trees bent over. As of right now its still bent over, but it has not broken. So I’m guessing it has survived so far. It doesn’t look like any limbs broke on any of my trees. I consider that a good thing. I shouldn’t lose any trees from this storm.

It was nice getting out for the walk, but it was cold. I was glad to get back into the house. I will say the birds ate all the birdseed I had out. I mean all the bird seed. It was empty, not much stuck to the bottom even. I did refill it today. I’m sure the brds will be happy for that.