Ice, Ice Baby...

Sunset on the 2nd day of ice storm

Some select pockets of NC got severe ice Thursday night through Friday afternoon, with major damage and the accompanying power outages. Some of the restoration work has been truly heroic and epic in proportions in Alamance, Guilford and Orange counties, while the rest of the state was relatively unaffected. We had more trees and tops come down on our property than we did in the statewide ice storm of February 2003, but not as much as back after Hurricane Fran in '96. Here are some snaps of the damage around our house. So while we've entered day four without power (so, no heat OR water as we're on a well), thankfully, everything big fell AWAY from any structure so we're blessed its only cleanup at this point (lots of cleanup):

Our redbuds, dogwoods and cedars around our fish pond are all down or split

Hmmm, driveway's not looking TOO bad…maybe we can still get out?

Ok, icing gets heavier and now the trees around the pond have all come down, blocking this section of the drive

Around the next corner, this section of the drive is completely covered, but mostly small stuff

A little further, and at least I can see wheel tracks

Some pine tops as we near the exit

Drive entrance out at the hard surface road. The cars were diverted down out little rd from the major highway, which was closed due to so many trees down. The dozer is making a path for the cars to follow.

Dozer clearing a path thru the debris on our road

We have a lot of these "sword of Damocles" hanging over our heads now...

It continued to drop freezing rain thru Friday afternoon...

Pretty, but dangerous…

If you look carefully, you'll see that this is about a 24" dia. tree, perhaps 75 feet tall, that could have fallen the other way onto the house. We're nothing but lucky.

A perhaps 12" Dia., 40 foot tree that fell AWAY from the garage...

Root ball and and flattened fence line from upended tree

A lot of cedars and pines got topped out like this one - the angled portion used to sit atop the upright trunk on the right.

Branches like this - about as big around as my leg - litter the woods everywhere. I worry for all the damage the mature hardwoods have suffered, and what the property will look like even after cleanup

This limb, about as big as my leg and maybe 15 feet long just missed the back deck. This is after we've moved it.

This is just a few of the pics we made, most of the stuff that came down are of manageable size - we only had 4 or 5 big trees come down whole, and again - everything missed the house and garage. At this point its just the sheer volume of downed limbs, and hanging ones, that have us feeling a bit daunted by the prospect of all the cleanup. But we've been able to clear the driveway, and will leave the rest till we have power and are able to safely and cleanly begin cleanup in earnest.

Thanks to all the power crews working so hard thru the nights to restore power, and our thoughts with everyone who suffered real damage or injuries.