Friday, September 09, 2016

An Encounter with Hermine

As its beginning to be light
The call came at 5:30 AM, an obnoxious buzzer from the 911 app on my phone.  Yesterday, the pager system went down, which is a bummer as the storm approaches.  I crawl out of bed, step into the bathroom and look at the phone.  I can’t read a thing, so I find my glasses.  It’s not a fire, but a public service call.  Someone has a tree on their roof.  I no longer rush, but dress listening to the rain and wind.  The storm isn’t supposed to be here until later this afternoon, but we’re definitely in a storm band from Hermine.  When the rain abates for a moment, I can hear distant thunder.  Grabbing some snacks as I don’t know how long I’ll be, I put on my raincoat and head out.  Without the pager, which allows you to hear radio traffic from the trucks, I’m unsure what I’m heading into. 

There are now two calls, one on Village Green Circle and another on Hunting Lane, both on the north end of the island.  I drive through the dark, down streets covered with Spanish moss, leaves and needles, but no real obstacles.  That all changes as I enter the Marshwood section of the island, that changes.  I dodge limbs and then pull to a stop behind the firetruck.  In front of us is a mass of trees in the middle of the road.  Ben and Shawn, who had stayed at the station overnight, brought out Engine 9 and are among the debris along with a couple of workers from the association.  Together, we worked to clear the road.  I haul limbs to the side and hold a flashlight for Ben who has the chainsaw.  It’s slow going.  After a bit of hard work, without making much headway, one of the workers for the association suggests that it would be a good idea to get out the backhoe.  We agree!  It would make things easier. 
On Hunting, as the sky lightens
We continue to cut and haul for the next fifteen or so minutes, but soon he’s back.  Instead of a digging arm, he’s put on claws that allows him to effortlessly grab logs and move them aside.  We walk along the backhoe so that we can cut logs that are too long for him to handle.  In ten or fifteen minutes, we have a path through the down trees and are able to make it to Hunting Lane.  We find a couple with two trees on their home.  “What took you so long, they ask?”  There isn’t really anything we can do and the trees look unstable.  Looking around, I see other trees that are broken.  One is a live oak about four feet in diameter with a crack at its base.  It’s leaning toward their neighbor’s house.  I go over and see a light on in the back (the entire island has underground utilities so electricity has stayed on despite an obvious tornado.  In his backyard, I realize he’s lost part of a porch.  I tell him about the other tree, but he doesn’t seem too worried and says he’ll stay in the far end of his house.  As we head back to the truck, I realize that it’s getting a little lighter.  Also, the rain has stopped.  We look around and can’t believe the devastation.  We head over to where a truck and crew from the station at the north end of the island are working.  Move devastation. This wasn’t supposed to be a bad storm.
The only home I saw that lost a roof
A natural area, notice the twisted pines

For the rest of the morning, we’re constantly being called out to help clear a fallen tree from a road or to help someone get their vehicle out of a garage that’s blocked.  One house has a gas lantern by the street, which has been knocked out by a fallen tree.  Gas is coming out and the woman of the house sacred her house might blow up.  I assure her she’s okay and eventually find the shut off valve for the lantern.  Other homes with major damage have no one at home and we cut the power and gas just in case.   Sadly, one of the homes destroyed was my secretary’s and her husband.  They told of how scary it was to have the skylights sucked out as the storm passed over. 
A stray tree on a house outside of tornado area
Our last storm related call is around 1 PM.  The eye has already passed us and the rain has abated.  At home, I check the gage and we’ve received 3.41 inches of rain in the past twenty-four hours.  Combined with yesterday’s 1.65 inches, we’ve received a little over five inches in two days.   After a dry summer, we can use the water.  Thankfully, there are only small branches, pine cones and leaves down at my house.  Labor Day will be a day of laboring for many of us on the island as we clean up from the storm. 

Driving through the tornado area after a fire call
This was later in the morning after the street had been cleared
A few days later, the National Weather Service published a bulletin on the storm.  It was an EF-1 tornado which developed over Romerly Marsha and moved westward for 1.3 miles, or about half way across the island.  The maximum winds were only 110 miles per hour, which while doing a number on trees didn’t flatten any houses.  The storm, at its largest, was 350 yards wide.  Although there were a number of trees down on the rest of the island, most of the major damage to homes were in the tornado’s path.  Thankfully, no one was hurt.

28 comments:

  1. It seems that a lot of the trees on those islands are less than 50 years old. There's in horticulture a series of dates when trees are at most danger of being destroyed and the most dangerous to us is that 50-70 depending on species for they are getting to a size and weight but are also getting into a wind grip that wasn't there earlier when they were all of a level. So you might be getting a few more of those calls during and after storms.

    Just a question. Have you come across Springs of Hope, Kenya Inc., a charity based in Florida. I can find loads of webpages on it but nothing of its origins/sponsors. It's connected to a Photo Walk I'm doing. But there's something that's raising a red flag but I've no clue just why.

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    1. Actually, many of the trees on the island (especially the live oaks) are much older. Parts of the island were logged, but mainly for pines.

      I have not heard of Springs of Hope, Kenya. We have a Kenyan pastor visiting this Sunday and I'll ask him.

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  2. When I first saw the photos on FB, I thought they had all been of your house. It was good to learn it wasn't but its a shame about the houses of others. The silver lining in all this is that nothing was destroyed that can't be rebuilt.

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  3. So much damage. It must be exhausting work to try and clean up after all of that. It is an amazing thing that no houses were flattened and that no one was injured.

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  4. Oh goodness, thankfully no one hurt, it could have been so much worse! I know that sound too, as my son has that as well and since he has become a firefighter I've discovered they are called to so many other calls besides fires! It's all very exciting, and so very important the job that you all do. We the people are so grateful to you all.

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  5. So glad to hear no one was hurt. Take care.

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  6. WOW that is terrible but so glad no one was hurt. Hermine blew thru here fairly quickly and we had minimal damage. Lots of yard debris to clean up over the weekend so I consider us really fortunate.

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  7. What a mess, but I'm glad all are okay. The power of Mother Nature is scary.n

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  8. Glad to hear no one was hurt but there's gonna be a lot of clean up. Dang.

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  9. Storms, whether hurricane or tornado, can be so frightening. Hope the cleanup goes smoothly.

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  10. Well done with cleanup after Hermine ... now if only you could take care of the political circus in your country like that, friend Sage ... as the world is watching and wondering. I mean look at him: Billionaire, belligerent big mouth ... will he share? ... and look at her: Billionaire, belligerent big mouth ... who worries about Hermine, who worries about them 2 clowns racing 4 Ur throne, hmmm? Love, cat.

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  11. Here in Columbia we had some winds gusting up to 30 miles per hour. Luckily we did have any real damage in our area. That doesn't mean I wasn't worried though. I have a twenty-something year old river birch tree in my front yard that I'm always concerned is going to crash down on someone when we have bad weather. It's situated WAY to close to the stop sign at the end of our street.

    I want to get rid of the thing but my wife gets in one of those do-not-push-me moods whenever I bring up the subject. She says something about how it adds value to the property and after that I tone her out and think about the tree falling on top of someone's car.

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  12. Nice writeup on a nasty local disaster and job well done, Jeff. Ugh. An EF1 is classified as a weak tornado, but the word "weak" is misleading when a tornado is involved. For the homeowner who's had his roof torn off or a tree dropped on top of her living room, it was one heck of a wind. Way to be there, knowing what to do and being willing to dig in and do it, for folks whose property got trashed.

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  13. Good work. Because I live in Gloucester, MA, home of The Perfect Storm, I NEVER under-estimate storms.

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  14. Good on the backhoe, that is hard sweaty work.

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  15. well done on the clearing up, it looks like a very devastating storm...

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  16. It's sad when tornados take away big trees, and what a ton of work that must have been to move them off houses. Yikes. Glad to hear everyone was okay.

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  17. Hermine wasn't very nice in your neck of the woods. Sorry to see that kind of damage.

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  18. With all those trees crashing down, I'm surprised and pleased there were no casualties! Miracle.

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  19. Wonderful nature exposes herself.
    We must pay respect.

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  20. I'd heard reports but didn't comprehend the devastation until reading this. How scary, and how courageous of you to address the damage and support Hermine's victims. It's relieving to know that nobody was hurt.

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  21. Wow. This was intense. I'm sorry people have to go through such devastation.

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  22. So wonderful they have you to help! That must have been a terrifying storm there. My sister and her husband had a lot of limbs down in northern Florida, but that's about it. Nothing on the house or barn.

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  23. I have lived in Florida for nine years and Hermine was the scariest storm we've had so far. I'm sorry it hit your area as well. How nice of you to help these people!

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  24. I read your post ... and went through a whole lot of different emotions before finally reading "Thankfully, no one was hurt."

    Nature throws so much at us both good, not so good and bad.
    It is how we all come together and help each other out that is important.

    All the best Jan

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  25. That must have been terrifying for the people caught in the storm. Thank goodness for volunteers like you who help out in such difficult times. I live in a "tornado alley," but thank goodness the tornados aren't strong. You must have been completely wrung out, Sage!

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