deja vu

dejavuSomebody from annarbor.com tweeted today that we were going to get a lot of rain over the next few days but the weather had stopped trying to kill us.

This broken tree was down in W1.5’s neighborhood today. Scenarios like this were all over the place down there. There was a rather obvious path. To an untrained eye (like mine), it looked a lot like a tornado had blown through. The weather experts say it was strong straight-line winds. I will defer to them. Also, I will guess that a tornado would’ve caused more building damage. The only damage I saw to houses was where trees or branches had fallen on them.

My little corner of the neighborhood was untouched, thank you very much! Not so much back in 2000 and 2008.

I didn’t have a blahg in 2000 but I did have a website and that’s where I posted the photos when the first tree fell onto our house. It was something like three in the morning and some rough weather was coming through and I was a little nervous but the GG was all excited about the incoming wind/thunderstorms. There were a few thunderbolts and that was okay but then there was a huge burst of wind and a huge thunder. Except that noise wasn’t thunder, it was a tree falling on the house. The GG and I jumped out of bed and our teenaged beach urchins met us in the “hall”. Everyone was okay, including our guinea pig and Izzy the rat. Luke of Perrynet (aka “You’re not Shuggy”) watched the whole thing and saw the top third of the tree “explode” and fall. He watches everything. We appreciate him.

2008… I took Friday afternoon off from my new loverly systems analyst job. We drove to Sault Ste. Siberia to visit The Commander and Radical Betty that day. The next morning there was a huge snowstorm but it all melted before noon and so we were at Kenny’s Pitchen for lunch and I received a message from that same neighbor saying, “A tree hit your house.” I get so much spam email that I almost deleted that one but… Perrynet? I read it and then I called. That tree hit Mouse’s bedroom but it was okay because nobody was home at the time.

Now that we have FINALLY revamped the ugly old Landfill Chitchen, I am so glad that no trees fell on my house!

6 Responses to “deja vu”

  1. Margaret Says:

    Wow-you have some EXCITING weather! Obviously, we have lots of trees come down in windstorms, but none has ever yet hit my house. Sometimes the roads are pretty difficult to navigate though.

  2. Sam Says:

    In our experience, straight-line winds plus weakened trees can indeed equal tree-on-house. Our scientific study has two data points regarding this conclusion…(as you well know).

  3. Pooh Says:

    It was straight line winds that dropped our tree down the front of our house, along with several other trees and telephones in our neighborhood a few years back.

  4. Pooh Says:

    Sam, two data points guarantee a 100% best line of fit = a straight line.

  5. Jay Says:

    Did the wind drop telephones picked up from another area of St. Louis?

  6. Pooh Says:

    Oops, it dropped a whole line of telephone POLES, on Big Bend, a major street 3 blocks from our house.