First here is some background on a beautiful tree that is in our neighbors backyard. It is very large and its branches are so big that they hang over our fence. I first noticed just how massive they were back in January when we were in the middle of the infamous "Ice Storm '09." I remember seeing the branches, which were then drooping low from the weight of the ice, and thinking I hoped they didn't snap. The house you see in the picture below in the left corner is ours. Notice the "Bent Tree" leaning and drooping from the weight of the ice....
The picture below is taken from another angle. At this point the branches were actually touching our roof....
The tree survived the ice storm and grew back into its full green color over the spring & summer. It also started getting loaded with acorns and met its breaking point. This morning as the kids and I were in the living/breakfast/kitchen area we heard a loud rumble. I looked out the windows (the whole back wall of that area is windows) and saw Bent Tree come tumblin' down. I started screaming because I didn't know where it would be landing. Praise be to God that it missed coming through those windows (where all 5 of us were) by about 2 feet. It actually wasn't the whole tree but only about 1/4-1/2 of it.The picture below is taken from the same viewpoint as the first one in this post....
The damages to our house and personal property (that's my insurance lingo. Cause you know I've been on the phone with them a lot since this happened) were so unbelievably minimal. I've pictured them below. (had to take all these pics for insurance purposes) Trampoline:
Satellite dishes....
Patio furniture... (this one is a bit hard to distinguish. middle left is the long red patio umbrella. underneath that is a chair. middle back of the picture is the table and another chair. The other 2 chairs are also under the tree but out of this picture.)
gutters...
The shingles had a couple of punctures but you obviously can't see those because the tree is still laying on top of them! Below is another view of the gutters and patio furniture....
A tree removal company was sent out 2 days later to get the tree off of our house. It took them nearly all day. I was so shocked when they told me that the part that had been laying on our house weighed about 3tons!!!! I was once again praising God that we were all okay and nothing worse had happened.
The workmen assessed the interior of the tree and found it had no disease. Their thoughts are that the tree was under tremendous pressure during the ice storm and it became really weak. Now that it has its full covering of leaves and lots of acorns, the weight caused those weak areas to literally snap.
Nice assessment but that meant out-of-pocket expenses for us. If the tree had been diseased, our neighbors insurance would've had to pay for it. But seeing as how it was no neglect of theirs, we got to foot the bill. (sometimes being the adult is not fun!)
No comments:
Post a Comment