Another Storm More Damage

Tuesday night around 6:30pm while watching the Reds game on tv, the hard rain was so loud that I turned to look out the patio door as the rain was torrential against the door and windows. I WAS SEEING THAT BANK OF TREES DOING THINGS I HAD NEVER SEEN BEFORE and I KNEW I was in trouble. About the time I said the word trouble to myself I watched that tree fall in slow motion right at me. Luckily the internet cables held the tree up before it could hit my fence, just like it did in November 2021.

I was more in disbelief than anger. Yet I did rant over the phone about this whole situation to a close friend of mine. But I could not yell or scream because I could not believe it had happened again, almost two months to the day.

The more I looked at it, I thought I had a pretty good chance of getting the tree cut off the cables without destroying my fence like they did in November 2021. I would have to be there though when they did it and explain to them what and how I wanted it cut.

Back in November 2021 that happened around 1am and there was a crew out there at 1:30am, cutting the tree and getting the two thin utility lines back up on the utility pole in my yard over to my neighbors past the two story shed. So honestly I thought there might be a chance they would show up after midnight just like the last crew. 

I always assume these lines are energized and won't touch them. That is a pretty neat splice. I saw how they worked today when they put the two lines back up.

Yet when that tree fell over those two electric lines and tore them in half ... it was like it exploded sideways when it broke away. This landed about 80' away over in my neighbor's yard just past my fence.

About 14 miles in the direction of the sunset is the airport. I found out today they recorded winds of 95mph. One of my neighbors told me his brother lives in that area and every tree in his area was leveled at the ground. Plus if you had a new house with vinyl siding, there was no siding on those houses. In this area many are made of brick though. 

So by 7:30pm taking this photo, I was pretty frustrated to say the least and once again not really sure of what to do. Do I sell out and move after this is cleaned up? If so, where to? It seems every place in the USA is having extreme weather, forest fires or other stuff. I walked away from this photo not sure when they would be out to fix things. Until they did I had no power along with 154 others on this grid.

Now as far as the county I live in, which is big .. the Center Point Energy outage site said there were over 20,000 in just the county without power.

After a restless night of sleep, cool enough to open the windows for a little coolness, I slept solid from 2am-4am ... laid there awake until 5am and decided I would join Ava in starting the day at 5am. The only problem was with those electrical lines laying in the yard ... I could only assume they were "energized" and the hounds and dogs could NOT go out into the yard for their normal routine. I knew those would be the first things they would go to and sniff.

My plan last night was to get up and cut as much of that tree as I could away from the fence. But my friend on the phone 6:30am my time had a better idea. Cut as many limbs as possible "you will be surprised how much weight that takes off that falling tree trunk".

I don' have a small chain saw, never really needed one and the one I had years ago would never start. A common theme with me and gas powered hand tools. I gave the hounds and dogs permission to use the garage but none of them were trained to do that and wouldn't do it. They were going to hold it until the yard was available.

This is probably the most useful tool I have ever owned and one of the few that I kept when I moved from Indiana to Arizona in May 2019. Then I have an older Looper that worked out well on the smaller limbs.

By 10:30 am I had all those limbs you see covering up the electrical wires that may or may not be "hot". The heavy part of the tree was still hanging above the fence. But at this point I am felling a lot better so they can get out in the yard when they need too. BUT .. it was getting hot fast. Near 90° at 10:30am ... all the blinds were drawn closed inside and the house had krept up too fast from 79 to 81° .... I started thinking what my next plan would be.

A friend earlier this morning had suggested renting a motel room with the dogs to get them inside AC.

By this time my phone was dead. Trying to charge it in the car just wasn't efficient even after I took a drive thinking that would charge it faster. Last night a neighbor offered, that I could charge my phone at his generator if I needed to. So I was walking toward his house when I heard a generator running next door in their carport. No doubt it was keeping their refrigerator working.

They were gone but the neighbor I was walking to came over. We unfolded a couple of lawn chairs and talked while my phone was charging. He moved into this neighborhood as a 24 year old when his house was brand new in 1958. I asked him if these storms were normal over the time he had lived here along with all the tree damage. He replied they have only gotten worse and more frequent these past two years.

We both laughed that I was possibly bad luck, since I have been here a few months past 3 years.

About the time I mention our county had gone from over 20,000 people with no power just in our county last night, by 11am it had dropped to a little over 4,000 customers without power. They were doing a great job getting things fixed. 

It wasn't a second after I told him that, a slow driving pickup truck drove by with a name on the door we did not recognize but thought or hoped it was a contractor for Center Point Energy. It was a name I had not seen back in May ... Groves Electrical Service. 

Being me and a possible PIA to those that work in my yard or area ... I got up from my chair and headed out to the truck because the driver with a larger truck and a lift, was talking to the driver in that smaller truck I had seen. He pointed to my house and asked if I lived there and then said they would look at what needed to be done and would be back TONIGHT to fix things.

I didn't hesitate and said "I need a really really big favor. I have 4 dogs inside that house with no AC, with temperatures climbing to 96° degrees, I have to have you IF YOU CAN fix it now"

"I will check with my foreman and see what we can do"

It wasn't five minutes after he said that, these 4 trucks parked and started to unload the equipment they would need. IT WAS UNBELIEVABLE ... but the story gets better and the hounds and dogs are involved. Talking with him later I found out that he also had a big dog at home.

The young man I was talking to told me they would only cut that tree back off of the UTILITY LINES and not the cables that belong to the internet companies. "You will have to call your internet company for them to cut that tree off their cables."

I call Spectrum immediately and get this answer "we don't cut trees anywhere, you will have to call a tree cutting service"

I told him that and that I was confused because back in November 2021 at 1:30am that electrical crew did cut the tree off of the internet cables and in fact cut the fallen tree at the base of it at ground level. He told me to ask the foreman who had just walked on the other side of my house. 

It wasn't soon after that talk they unloaded this power looper and started cutting away WITH A FOCUS OF NOT HAVING ANYTHING FALL ON MY FENCE !!!!!

They were doing what I thought I could do with my tall ladder ... then I thought if that tree trunk would get moved off of those cable it would swing back to the bottom half of the tree and hang there vertical out of the way. The biggest difference ... THEY had the rope to use to do just that.

In the meantime this guy is at the top of my utility pole getting two lines strung back where they should be. 

They are using this rope to pull and lift the new cable to him. ... Actually that is cable that was laying across my fence and in the yard. So with that splice he is able to connect the old cable back to the pole.

Eventually these two and the third on the right ... were leaning back as far as they could to get the old cable up to where the guy on the pole could connect the two.

That is a splice you see hanging next to his shoulder. There is no crimping involved. Just slide the end of that long cable into that splice, shove it deep inside and just like that it holds the cables.

You can see that is the first of two lines going all the way over to my neighbor's utility pole. 

And just like in November 2021, once that tree trunk was off the internet company cables, the two heavy internet cables sprung back up to their original position. You can see the tree hanging at the part where the trunk broke in two last night due to SWIRLING HIGH WINDS.

If you look down the pole and to the right you see a black wire hanging almost vertical. That is the wire we tied around the pole to get it out of the way last Saturday ... an old AT&T internet account that was changed years ago next door and until last Saturday was laying on the roof of my neighbor. The AT&T guy would not cut that wire when he was here a couple of weeks ago, after I asked him to.

Today was different. I asked one of the crew standing there if I could borrow their cutters and cut that wire that was hanging. I told him it was an AT&T to an older internet account that was no longer used next door. "We will do you one better ... he can cut that up there at the connection as he is climbing down the pole" !!!!!!

What a group of workers this was.

So the heavy limb is left hanging. The foreman reminded me of that in case I had kids playing back there or if I were back there in the future. I will let it hang there until it falls.

I was responsible for clearing the yard of all the limbs and any tree trunks left behind by what they cut. I thought that was a pretty good trade and after a short break I got right on it. I used the loopers for the thinner limbs. What I could not toss all the way into the bushes on the berm ... I at least got it over the fence to be hauled away or thrown on top of the bushes.

That log on the right was heavy and I couldn't get up over the fence. The ones on the left I drug out the open fence gate to a place on the back side of the berm but not in the cornfield. 

The hounds and dogs were thrilled their AC was back operational. They were very good during all of this action today. And the crew loved them and loved petting them.

Evidently the word must have gotten around the crew that they were doing this for not only the other 153 people without power on this grid but the dogs and hounds. "Hey where are your dogs at, can we see them?" ... while they were working.

I warned her about a huge bloodhound that gets pretty excited when people are near his fence ... "we don't care about that ... we'd love to see him". I said once you are finished I will bring all four out ....

They loved the hounds and the dogs as much as the hounds and dogs enjoyed getting petted. The shock was Watson never jumped up, never bayed to get petted .... he only did that at the end of the fence when they were walking to their trucks.

I took the mower after all the limbs were gone and mowed over the stems and leaves and did two trips behind the fence to do the same.

So a very very successful day, one unexpected ... when the power came back on so did my modem/router so I never lost interest service except when I didn't have electrical power. I also sent an email to the company's contact link letting the head office know that this crew today was professional and way above and beyond their normal job.

As I leave here at 6:18pm I hear rolling loud thunder with sunny skies and another severe weather working until 8:00pm CT. .... What if this is the new norm in weather???

It was a long story from "the tropics" of Southern Indiana.