Digging out from Isabel

Wudman · September 22, 2003, 07:19:00 AM

Howdy folks,

I hope all is well. Here in South Central Virginia, Isabel turned out to be a minor pain in the butt. We have just about gotten ourselves dug out. We had a lot of roadside and yard trees to come down. One 200+ year old white oak in my yard came down and went across my mill. I got the mill dug out yesterday afternoon and it appears to be intact. I lost the power pole feeding power to it, but otherwise I'm in pretty good shape. My dad and I got the top back on one of the tobacco barns yesterday and the remainder of the tobacco crop faired well. It is still standing anyway. If we can beat the frost now, we should be ok. I guess on the bright side of things, I have all the logs I can possibly saw for a while. I didn't lose many trees on my farm, but our neighbors were not as lucky. My sister had a bunch of trees come down around her house. One limb took down a gutter from her porch so they came out pretty well too.

I don't think the folks down in eastern VA faired quite as well. Best wishes to them. The news paper here reported that 5.5 million people in VA (7.1 million total population) were without power following the storm. I'm running on a generator at the moment, and don't know when power may be restored, but everyone is safe. Take care.

Wudman

SawInIt CA · September 22, 2003, 12:56:51 PM

Good luck getting it all back together.

DanG · September 22, 2003, 02:17:15 PM

Wudman, congrats on making it through with "light" damage. That ol' oak knew right where to go, didn't it? :D Hope the mill is ok.
You guys dodged a mighty big bullet when Isabel petered out before it got there. It coulda been another Hugo. I was in Charleston a few weeks after Hugo, and you DonT want any of that! It was a king-sized mess.

Barbara_Gill · September 22, 2003, 08:18:48 PM

Well, that was quite a storm.We live about 30 miles from the Chesapeake Bay.
We had a tide of at least 5' over mean high, maybe more. We had no damage to our home. One barn fell (probably a good thing). It appears from the damage that we had a slew of tornadoes dancing all over the the farm but not touching the ground). Dan came in from checking conditions about 9:00 pm Thurs. night exclaiming about the way the wind was roaring in the tops of the trees. I am sure glad I didn't realize what was happening. The noise was so bad up at the other end of the farm that our manager and his wife couldn't hear each other talking. The next day it was obvious what had
happened; many trees were twisted off half way up. We had at least 7 large cedars across the main road. We probably have about 300 trees either down or damaged. Most are not worth fooling with. What is really sobering is that we probably only had sustained winds of about 55-60 mph with gusts of about 85 mph.
Right before dark we watched my brother in laws motor boat knocking holes in the boathouse while the waves were breaking in the windows. The sailboat moored next to it was loose. In the morning the boathouse was gone, the sailboat which draws 7' had its keel stuck into the mud across the creek and the motor boat had disappeared. We are so much more fortunate than so many others who lost their homes. We have an generator which we take from one spot on the farm to the other. Right now it is hooked to the house. We have water for showering every night (gas water heater) and power for limited use at the house now. I have heard that it may a week or two before electricity is restored.
This whole area is a mess of hugh trees down and debris. It is amazing that more houses were not damaged. I know of one house in Urbanna on the river that lost 45' of yard, bringing the river within 5' of the house.

Bibbyman · September 22, 2003, 08:32:39 PM

Glad you're all right and mostly intact. Thanks for taking the time to tell us what's going on.

Kevin · September 22, 2003, 08:35:41 PM

Barbara;
Good to hear you folks are ok.
The damage is a real bummer.

Fla._Deadheader · September 22, 2003, 09:22:41 PM

Sure is good to hear that you guys are OK.

Weekend_Sawyer · September 23, 2003, 05:31:23 AM

Here in Laurel Maryland we got LOTS of wind and rain and it is raining again! I lost power Thursday afternoon and got it back on sunday. It dit not bother me much because I have a generator and could run everything but the stove, I'm convertin that to gas soon.

I hauled away truck loads of limbs and so far have cut and stacked about 2 cords of wood that fell between my house and my brother Chris's. I wached a 10" maple fall almost on Chris's house and take his powerlines off

This weekend we are heading for the cabin in WV where they think a tornado went up our driveway (old logging road) and downed 50 trees.
Including a couple of walnut. We are going to spend the weekend hauling saw logs home with 2 flat bed trailers and a skid steer we should get it done.

Wudman · September 23, 2003, 06:49:33 AM

DanG,

I got to experience the aftermath of Hugo firsthand. Just after the storm, I moved down there to work with the salvage operations. Hugo and Isabel weren't related as far as forestry goes......Our forests are still fairly well intact here. I hope to never see anything like Hugo again.

Barbara,

Glad to hear that you are well. I have a cousin that lives on the river at White Stone and we were able to make contact with him yesterday. They had some flooding in the first floor of his house, but other than that all is well. One of my coworkers lives on Mobjack Bay just outside of Gloucester. I haven't been able to talk with him since the storm, but he sent word out that they were ok. Best of luck to all.

Wudman