@*$%# ice storm!!!

[ScottOkla]

Oh well.

The good news is that most of it will grow back. The bad news is most of us will be dead before then.

Tulsa was sure a lot prettier last week than it is now.

 

[WTA]

What happened? I was too busy here to watch the news. It went through here a few days ago too but it wasn't too bad untill the next county to our North. Thankfully. We've had a couple bad snows so far but at least the ice hasn't been too bad yet.

 

[chh]

Feeling for you Scott, south of you here in eastern OK we have gotten it twice, 2000 and early 2007. 13 days to get power the first time and only 9 the second. After all that I own a PTO drive generator(business), 5500 watt and a Ranger 10. The big PTO drives is on a manual transfer switch and worth everything I paid for it.

 

[MossRoad]

Oh well.

The good news is that most of it will grow back. The bad news is most of us will be dead before then.

Tulsa was sure a lot prettier last week than it is now.

There was a similar ice storm in central Indiana about 15 years ago. Took a few weeks for the most rural of folks to get power back. However, you now have to look real hard to see the signs of the damage on the trees. Many were stripped of most major branches. My suggestion would be to have any damaged trees professionally trimmed and pruned and see how things look a year from now. Nature has a way of springing back fast.

 

[Tig]

During our big storm in 99 we sat around waiting for the power to come back on. On the third day of rain I heard the news that 88 transmission towers has collapsed between my place and the Hydro dam. Nature recovered over the next couple years.
The worst legacy of the storm is that it seems like everyone has a generator now. When we had the summer blackout a few years back I came home to a very peaceful neighbourhood. Within an hour all you could hear was generators.
Watch out for falling ice when you go outside.

 

[tallyho8]

Most of the trees in our area that were not knocked down by Katrina in 2005 had large branches or the tops broken off. This summer when all the leaves were on, the trees looked completely normal again. Now that the leaves have fallen you can still tell how badly damaged some trees were but they are recovering much quicker than I had believed possible.

 

[dooleysm]

That central Indiana ice storm gave me a terrible case of poison ivy.

Here's how:

I worked at Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis during the summers in high school and college. After that ice storm hit they had so many downed trees and limbs to clean up that they couldn't cut them up and chip them in the normal fashion. Instead, they just piled them all up in a spare field. 2 summers later they sent me up there with a few other guys to clear that field. We had to use weedeaters to clear paths to the limbs, branches, etc. Then we loaded those up to haul off so they could reclaim that field. While weedeating we ran into some poison ivy (unknown to us at the time). Later in the day it started raining, so we all put on our rain gear. The poison ivy mixed with sweat and rain and then steamed in with the rain gear. All of us had to go get shots a couple days later. We all had the worst poison ivy that I've ever encountered.

 

[okie350]

Hey Scottokla, where are you at?

I live in the Mounds area, have power back on but no water. been having to drive the tractor to the pond with a 55 gallon drum to get water for the horses and cows. Have a lot of trees and limbs down....... I am hoping we do not get the "round two" this weekend

 

[ScottOkla]

Hey Scottokla, where are you at?

I live in the Mounds area, have power back on but no water. been having to drive the tractor to the pond with a 55 gallon drum to get water for the horses and cows. Have a lot of trees and limbs down....... I am hoping we do not get the "round two" this weekend

I am far enough south of Tulsa that my tree damage is not severe. Our temps hovered between 29 and 33 degrees the entire two days so much of the 4.7 inches of rain ran off the trees. However, I spent Wednesday back in the area of Broken Arrow where I used to live helping some older people remove trees from their yards, fences, and houses. This is an area built in the 60s and the trees are mostly mature. Pine trees and very old pecan trees do not like ice. Many of these will end up being removed. Those neighborhoods will not look the same again for a long time.

On the other hand, the storms south of here in 2000 and east of here in 2006 were just as bad, just not as widespread and didn't hit the two big cities, so we have been a little lucky in the past.

It is just amazing that we could get almost 5 inches of rain, much of it as thunderstorms, with the temps staying right at the freezing mark. I was actually surveying the ice damage from my window by lightning flashes.

 

[chh]

Actually we got more ice than Tulsa got both times. Big area but no big cities. McAlester and Muskogee where the 2 largest last year. The ice is really rough on pines. They will shed the limbs off in an unbelievable fashion. If the main trunk isn't damaged they will usually survive and will look pretty darn good after about 2 years. Pecans will loose basically all the nut producing limbs, but likewise should survive. They will look much better by the end of the summer, but will take about 7 years to come back to full nut production.(A friend has a large grove and it was just really coming back close to production levels before the first ice storm when the second one hit.) Don't give up on the trees too quick, they will really suprise you. After 3 to 4 years it will be hard to tell it happened as long as they don't get diseased while they are recovering.