Susan Wheary from Missouri this story about last weekend’s ice storm in her area…I am reprinting it with her permission…
Here’s a little more on the ice storm we “enjoyed” this past weekend.
Sunday afternoon about 2:30 it started raining again – a regular, very liquid and obviously super-cooled freezing rain. It was unbelievable. I watched one small tree that was bent over actually bend further in mere moments until it touched the ground with the twigs of its middle branches. Several other small trees went down like dominoes. The woods were alive with cracklings, crashings, and groanings far surpassing anything of the previous day. You’d hear a loud crack and turn to watch a large branch fall or the whole top of the tree swing around and dangle. We stood out in the pouring rain (in a clearing!) and watched, dumbfounded. The crashing continued all night. By morning our woods looked like a crystal replica that someone had hit with a baseball bat repeatedly.
We finally got out Tuesday to observe some of the damage elsewhere.
About a half mile from us there’s a stretch of road where nearly every utility pole is down, most of them torn in half with splintery ends.
Wires droop across the road (and are still untouched as of today). The road downhill from us has been cleared at least four times now – and there was a branch across it again when I left the house to go to the library today. (Our library has electricity and welcomes laptops).
The town of Fairview is a shambles – wires down, utility poles split and fallen, and in at least one case the electric meter was pulled right off the wall of the house. Granby is not quite as bad, Monett nearly so, and Stark City pretty bad with fallen trees etc.
The damage is still continuing today – the first day we’ve really thawed out. But watch out – we’re supposed to get snow Saturday night, and more freezing rain thereafter.
Be careful chasing tornadoes this spring in our area – they’ll have plenty of loose stuff to throw at you!
Subsiding back into lurk mode,
Susan
