Beryl

[ag4ever]

Whew, it been a heck of a week in Houston. I’ve lived through many Tropical Depressions, Tropical Storms, and Hurricanes. Beryl ranks right up there with some of the more destructive ones I’ve personally experienced. I would say only Alecia in the early 80’s was worse.

I have been EXTREMELY lucky in this one. And overall, from what I have heard, the life loss has been low.

Beryl’s claim to fame has been the wind damage to trees. On my property I lost 1 large China Tallow, one large peach, chunks out of 3 pecans, several limbs from a sycamore, an unknown hummingbird tree, and a hackberry from my neighbor’s pasture fell on our fence.

My wife wanted to save the hummingbird tree, so I strung a strap over a gin pole connected to the wrangler, and pulled it back up. Then braced it with a 4x4.

I’ve also been very fortunate that a friend (thank you John) loaned me one of his tractors and a chipper. It has been eating up all the debris which is much better than my usual burn pile.

So, here are a few photos of my aftermath.

 

[ag4ever]

 

[ag4ever]

Here are some random shots from my neighborhood. (This is not the worst, there are some yards that are covered in downed trees, these are ones that spotlighted the power of the storm)









We used to have a large oak tree in the middle of the road that is now gone.



That is not the stump on the left, that actually came from the yard to the left. The oak was at least twice that size.

 

[ag4ever]

I keep my boat at a local storage facility, and they were hit hard. (But still standing, so that is good.)

 

[ag4ever]

Again, I was very fortunate that my unit had no damage.

During the week preceding the storm, all of the models predicted landfall about 100 miles south of me. I had a gut feeling they were all wrong, and unfortunately it was true. The eye passed about 5-10 miles Northeast of me and directly over my mother’s house. Fortunately her house had no damage and very minor tree damage. Her only issue was her standby generator. It runs a test every Monday, has performed flawlessly. I check it on Sunday morning to be sure oil was good, battery, etc… Everything checked out. But when she lost power, the starter locked up and failed. So I pulled a 10kw gas generator out and hooked her up with that until CPE could restore power. But to get it to her, I had to clear several trees off the local Farm - Market roads. Again, I was lucky that others jumped in to help and made quick work of it.

On that topic, there are lots of people still without power. I was again fortunate, I was restored in 12 hours, my mother in 48 hours. As I type this, most of my neighbors still don’t have power.

All in all, I feel very blessed to have weathered this storm like we have.

Be safe out there, and take care.

 

[Belizeit]

Glad you did ok. We are bracing for a bad season over here east of you. It just takes one to ruin your life. Ida hit 30 some miles west of our area almost 3 years ago with lots of damage around here with lots of trees downed and fences and roofs. Took us 9 days to get electricity back. Been kicking around the idea of getting a whole house generator and got estimates a couple years ago. Quite expensive. I think so many people back then were pulling the trigger that the prices were jacked up. Decided to check again, just getting to old to deal with the ac unit off that long around here. I have a small generator that runs 2 refrigerators and a chest freezer and a fan. Was couple thousand cheaper and fixing Katrina damage from 2005 and a larger unit also so pulled the trigger on that. Just waiting on permits and installation.

 

[barrys]

Glad you made out better than alot. I was wondering if anybody on here was in its path.
My last job I did tree work and when Sandy hit up here in the northeast we were out cleaning up trees before the storm had even left the area. I bought a generator after not having power for 6 days(lost it before the rain/heavy winds even started). I currently have 4 generators(got free ot stupid cheap that needed work). Gotta sell 2 of them.
Hope the rest of the hurricane season is call for everybody.

 

[TexasAg77]

Glad you came out . Maybe I can buy you a beer at a game this fall?

 

[ag4ever]

Glad you came out . Maybe I can buy you a beer at a game this fall?

Sounds great!

 

[bigwalton]

I keep my boat at a local storage facility, and they were hit hard. (But still standing, so that is good.)

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We had a tornado drop in the next neighborhood years back. It was weak as they go but I’ll always remember a house under construction had the garage door sucked outward just like that.

 

[Belizeit]

That’s why when hurricanes come, I board up all windows and bolt up a secondary plywood cover for the garage door. If one window breaks, chances are the roof will lift off the house and then I have real problems. Just easier to do the work ahead of time. Plenty of small tornadoes pop up also during hurricanes.