September 14 2013
 The Story in Pictures

Mike had flown off to Auckland for business just before dinner on Tuesday evening.  The wind was blowing the car around on our drive back from the airport.  And just after 9:00 pm we lost power.  We set up a lot of candles on the kitchen table figuring that power would be out for the night.

By 10:00 the wind was howling and we starting hearing branches cracking and the THUD of trees hitting the ground.  We peered through the windows holding up flashlights to see what was going on.  We could see fallen trees in the yard and then saw many many trees falling, one right after the other.  Our flashlight beams only reached to the first couple of rows of trees in the forest so we had no idea what we were to see in the morning.  Fortunately, none of the trees hit the house or any other structures in the clearing, except for the wood shed.  Here are some before and after pictures.  A brief description of the area follows each set.

A picture of the front driveway from last year.

The front driveway area from the deck outside my room on Wednesday morning.

Mike flew back from Auckland Wednesday morning and he and Heather began  clearing the front driveway.  This had to be done immediately because we were unable to get the cars off the property. One of the dangers of living in the confines of a forest is fire.  One of the forested areas some distance away from us did catch fire from a lightning strike during the storm.   The fire trucks were unable to get to it because of downed trees blocking the roads.  I assume that the rain that followed the wind and the lightning helped in putting that fire out.

Front drive cleared

Here is Heather standing amid the first row of trees that fell across the side driveway.

Here is the north side of the house from last year and the forest on the south side of the property

Here is the same shot from today.

Here is the east side of the house from last year.

Here is the same view from today.

Here is the west side from last year and the forest on the east side of the property.

And here is the west side from today.  The property behind the house from this view was the hardest hit.  There are very few trees still standing and most of those are damaged and will have to be taken down.

Here is the garden from last year with the forest on the east side of the house behind it.

And here is the garden area after the storm.

I don't have a good 'before' picture of the orchard, but here is what it looks like today.  There were about 20 fruit trees growing in the orchard.  We have been able to save some of them.

Here is the woodshed.  All four trees seen in the background came down.  The two on the left hit the woodshed, collapsing the left end, and the root balls of the two on the right pulled up the floor of the shed and broke through the back wall.

Here is a view of the shed from the left end showing the collapse.

You can just see the top of the chicken coop in the center of this picture.  It sat in the woods between the rows of trees.  It did not take a direct hit, but there was some damage to the roof and part of it blew off the next day when the winds came up again.

Mike spent a couple of hours this morning cutting a path through the branches and tree trunks to get to the coop.  As you can see, it was very lucky to not take a direct hit.  The turkey hutch apparently was not so lucky.  We have not even found it yet, so we're assuming it has been crushed.

Many trees down around the Wee Mansion, but none actually hit it.

Four trees fell behind the Wee Mansion but caused no damage.

So that is some of the damage.  The very sad part is that the forest around the house is gone. Of the approximately 2200 trees on the property, they are estimating that 1500-1800 are down. It will take many years to replace it.

Tomorrow I'll post some pictures of the progress we are making cleaning it up!